Elizabeth Warren And Keith Ellison Double-Teaming For America's Working Families

Yesterday Elizabeth Warren was the keynote speaker at an AFL-CIO conference. Her speech is embedded above and I didn't quote too much from it below. The coverage-- from Politico and the Wall Street Journal on the right to The Nation on the left-- was far more serious than coverage of speeches by other senators and far more serious than speeches by presidential candidates, whether serious ones like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush or silly ones like Mike Huckabee and Jim Webb.

The three lead paragraphs-- Politico: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren savaged trickle-down economics and took a swipe at President Ronald Reagan on Wednesday, blaming both parties for policies she said have devastated U.S. workers while propping up the wealthy." Wall Street Journal: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivers a stinging critique of Republicans and Democrats alike in a speech this morning that said policies pushed by both parties have created financial hardships for everyday families while further enriching a narrow sliver of Americans." The Nation: "If you want to understand the coming intra-party battles on economic issues between progressive Democrats and their moderate colleagues-- which will no doubt bleed into the 2016 Democratic presidential primary-- Senator Elizabeth Warren’s keynote speech to an AFL-CIO conference on Wednesday might be your best blueprint." We'll stick with George Zornick's insights at The Nation since its more revelatory than the other two more straight forward reports. Zornick set the background by reminding his readers that President Obama's message is that everything is getting better. But that isn't how Warren sees it. "Despite these cheery numbers," she told her audience regarding the recent White House charm offensive of stats showing an economy clearly turned around, "America's middle class is in deep trouble."

Her argument was that while individual indicators are looking up, there is a structural problem in the American economy that’s only getting worse. “When I look at the data here-- and this includes years of research I conducted myself-- I see evidence everywhere about the pounding that working people are taking. Instead of building an economy for all Americans, for the past generation this country has grown an economy that works for some Americans.”

She cited familiar stats about how wages flattened out in the early 1980s while profits grew, and that expenses grew as well: she noted Americans are paying far more for mortgages, health insurance and tuition than they did 30 years ago. Warren described how quite literally 100 percent of the income gains in the past 32 years went to the top ten percent of earners.

“These families are working harder than ever, but they can't get ahead. Opportunity is slipping away. Many feel like the game is rigged against them-- and they are right,” Warren said. “The game is rigged against them…. The world has changed beneath the feet of America's working families.”

No doubt Obama agrees with much of that analysis-- and has voiced it himself at various times.

But he either doesn’t agree with, or expends no energy undertaking, some of Warren’s solutions to structural problems: like, say, breaking up the big banks, which Warren expressly advocated in her speech Wednesday. Warren also has spent a lot of time raising concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in recent months, and referred Wednesday to “trade pacts and tax deals that let subsidized manufacturers around the globe sell here in America while good American jobs get shipped overseas.” Obama, of course, is pushing hard for TPP to be fast-tracked.

These specific policy disagreements between Warren and Obama-- and between many progressive and moderate Democrats more broadly-- are best explained by the philosophical difference Warren tried to outline in Wednesday’s speech. If you believe the economy is basically doing fine, you’re less likely to want to rock the boat policy-wise. You’ll push for some nice things like increasing the minimum wage, but nothing enormous. Things are good!

But if you believe, as Warren and many of her progressive allies in Congress do, that the game is fundamentally rigged, the rhetorical and substantive response to economic problems is much different.

We’ve seen this difference play out in small skirmishes already. Warren led an unsuccessful charge against relaxing a substantial Dodd-Frank rule during the year-end appropriations process-- a measure backed by Democratic leadership in the Senate and not deemed veto-worthy by Obama. Right now, a House bill to delay the Volcker Rule is being backed by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.  These are fundamentally fights about how much power Wall Street should be allowed to have, and the government’s role in checking it.

While Warren was talking to the AFL-CIO, Keith Ellison was on the House floor leading the Democrats' efforts to stop the Republicans from rushing through a hodgepodge of 11 bills meant to weaken Wall Street reform and further reward conservative campaign contributors at the expense of America's working families. Because the Republicans were still getting "corrections" to the bill from Wall Street lobbyists, they were forced to put the toxic package on the floor as a motion to suspend the rules and pass, which requires a 2/3 majority to pass. Klan Whip Scalise may have thought they had enough right-wing Democrats crossing the aisle to get it through... but he turns out to be as bad a vote counter as McCarthy was. The final vote was 276-146 and it certainly separated the wheat from the chaff inside the Democratic Party. Starting with the Democratic freshmen (bolded), these are the 35 most eager to sell out their constituents to Wall Street banksters:

• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)
• Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)
• Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA)
• Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)
• John Carney (New Dem-DE)
• Jerry Connolly (New Dem-VA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• John Delaney (New Dem-TX)
• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
• Elizabeth Esty (New Dem-CT)
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)
• John Garamendi (CA)
• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)
• Hank Johnson (GA) (says he voted YES by mistake... oops)
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)
• Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Dave Loebsack (IA)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Colin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Jared Polis (New Dem-CO)
• Mike Quigley (New Dem-IL)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Bobby Rush (IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Albio Sires (NJ)

Simon Johnson wrote yesterday after the vote about how the Republicans have a strategy of repealing Dodd-Frank for their Wall Street donors. "House Republicans," he wrote, "put their cards on the table with regard to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms. The Republicans will chip away along all possible dimensions, using a combination of legislation and pressure on regulators-- with the ultimate goal of relaxing the restrictions that have been placed on the activities of very large banks (such as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase)... The House Republican rhetoric will be 'technical fixes' and 'job creation.' But the reality is that they are determined to strip away all meaningful restrictions imposed on Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and other megabanks-- and to roll-back Dodd-Frank as far as possible, until it becomes meaningless or they are finally able to repeal it completely." He neglected to mention that the Republicans have a sizable contingent of Blue Dogs and New Dems working just as hard towards the same goals. Putative Democrats like Kyrsten Sinema (currently being courted by the DSCC to run for the U.S. Senate), Jim Himes, Patrick Murphy, John Delaney, Scott Peters, Henry Cuellar, Sean Patrick Maloney... are at least just as bad and just as eager to ingratiate themselves with the banksters as the Republicans are.

When Warren talked about bad Democrats who undercut working families, that list above is who she's talking about, at least on the House side. Ellison, who led the successful floor fight today for Pelosi, was elated. "Families are only now starting to recover from the devastating financial crisis. Congress must strengthen and fully enforce the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Republicans are starting the 114th Congress by fast-tracking bills to help mega banks and slow-walking legislation to support working Americans. Under the leadership of Ranking Member Maxine Waters and Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrats will continue to stand on the side of America’s working families." Here's his floor speech: