The Warren Worldview of Ill-founded Economic Pessimism is Both Bloodless and Moralizing.
At the heart of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for president—and of her entire career as a politician and public intellectual, really— are two simple ideas.
The first is that the economy is fundamentally broken. This downer of an idea was present in the speech that launched her presidential campaign on February 9, 2019, in which she declared that
“millions and millions of American families are also struggling to survive in a system that has been rigged by the wealthy and the well-connected” and in which she insisted that the only response was to fight for “big structural change.”
It was present at the first Democratic primary debate, in which she inveighed against corporate profits and monopolistic businesses and corrupt lawmakers who have “made this country work much better for those who can make giant contributions, made it work better for those who hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers, and not made it work for the people,” and in which she scored the opening night’s standout moment by offering a full-throated argument for the elimination of private health insurance.
It was present in the 2007 essay that imagined what would eventually become the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency premised on the notion that American families were being “steered into overpriced credit products, risky subprime mortgages, and misleading insurance plans” and that many of these products needed to be regulated as pervasive dangers to the American family.
It was present in the very title of her breakout 2004 book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, which promoted a systemic view of America’s economic fragility, driven by data that Warren had compiled during her career as an academic bankruptcy researcher.
Esta historia es de la edición October 2019 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición October 2019 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Libertarianism From the Ground Up
ARGUMENTS FOR LIBERTARIANISM typically take two forms. Some libertarians base their creed on natural rights-the idea that each individual has an inborn right to self-ownership, or freedom from aggression, or whatever-and proceed to argue that only a libertarian political regime is compatible with those rights.
Lawlessness and Liberalism
THE UNITED STATES is notorious both for mass incarceration and for militarized police forces.
Politics Without Journalism
THE 2024 CAMPAIGN WAS A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR THE WAY WE PROCESS PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
EVERY BODY HATES PRICES
BUT THEY HELP US DECIDE BETWEEN BOURBON AND BACONATORS.
The Great American City Upon a Hill Is Always Under Construction
AMERICA'S UTOPIAN DREAMS LEAD TO URBAN EXPERIMENTATION.
Amanda Knox Tells Her Own Story
\"OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RELIES UPON OUR OWN IGNORANCE AND THE FACT THAT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OUR RIGHTS ARE.\"
Trade Policy Amnesia
WHILE HE WAS interviewing for the job, President Joe Biden demonstrated an acute awareness of how tariffs work. It's worrisome that he seems to have forgotten that or, worse, chosen to ignore it-since he's been president.
Civil Liberties Lost Under COVID
WHEN JOE BIDEN was sworn in as president in January 2021, he had good reason to be optimistic about the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bye, Joe
AMERICA'S 46th president is headed out the door. After a single term marked by ambitious plans but modest follow-through, Joe Biden is wrapping up his time in office and somewhat reluctantly shuffling off into the sunset.
Q&A Mark Calabria
IF YOU HAVE a mortgage on your home, the odds are that it's backed by one of two congressionally chartered, government-sponsored enterprises (GSES), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.