Boston Globe: America needs union jobs
When he was gunned down by an assassin’s bullet in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis. His last political act was to support sanitation workers as they fought for economic security and dignity on the job. Dr. King understood that the struggle for equality and justice is not limited to civil rights. […]
USA Today Op-Ed: Elizabeth Warren: Trump team isn’t negotiating a good NAFTA deal for workers
The evidence is in: Donald Trump is the King of Offshoring. Since Trump promised to stop American job outsourcing, company after company has announced its intent to send more jobs overseas. Over 600 Indianapolis Carrier jobs went to Mexico, along with 300 jobs across town at Rexnord, and another 600 at Nabisco. GE. Microsoft. Lowe’s. […]
American Banker Op-Ed: Misguided data freeze keeps CFPB from doing its job
During the fallout from the financial crisis, I worked with Congress to design the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stand up for consumers and hold accountable the giant corporations that had crashed the economy. Congress gave the agency a lot of tools to level the playing field – it can write rules to implement laws and sue financial institutions that break them. CFPB examiners inspect financial institutions to make sure their practices are fair and don’t cheat customers. And CFPB handles complaints that come directly from consumers.
TIME Op-Ed: America Can Never Go Back to the Era of Back-Alley Abortions
When I was a girl growing up in Oklahoma, women got abortions. But because those procedures were illegal, many of them ended up with back alley butchers. And we all heard the stories: women who bled to death or died from an infection.
STAT Op-Ed: Congress needs to fund community health centers right away
I love community health centers. They do wonderful work and enjoy widespread support. But I’m worried because Republican leaders in Congress have held these centers hostage by halting federal funding while they focus on passing tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s past time to step up the fight for community health centers in my state of Massachusetts and across the country.
South Coast Today Op-Ed: The internet is for all of us … not just the rich and powerful
The internet is an important part of our lives. In Massachusetts and across the country, students of all ages go online to complete their homework. Entrepreneurs and small businesses sell goods and do business online. Families come together to watch their favorite movies or shows. But right now our access to a fair and open internet is under attack. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to roll back key federal protections known as net neutrality rules – rules that make sure companies can’t block, filter, or charge customers more to access certain websites or apps.
New York Times Op-Ed: Warren and Sanders: Who Is Congress Really Serving?
Over the past year, Republicans have made their priorities clear. Their effort to repeal Obamacare would have left tens of millions of people without health insurance. Now Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, wants to ram through an enormous tax giveaway to the wealthy before seating Doug Jones, Alabama’s newly elected Democratic senator.
Washington Post Op-Ed: UPS and Pfizer’s dirty little secret
The blandly named American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is one of the most powerful groups you may have never heard of. ALEC describes itself as the “largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.” In reality, it is an almost entirely corporate-funded front group looking to roll back environmental, consumer and workplace protections in state legislatures across the country. When ALEC talks, conservative state legislators listen and act.
USA Today Op-Ed: Don't let Trump & Wall Street gut consumer protection bureau
Before the 2008 financial crisis, people were tricked, squeezed, misled and outright cheated by a lot of lenders. Wall Street banks handed out mortgages they knew their customers couldn’t repay. Credit card companies hid dangerous traps deep in the fine print of their contracts. Student loan servicers caught students and graduates in tangles of debt with high interest rates. And after sucking billions in profits out of the pockets of hardworking people, the financial giants crashed the economy, costing millions of Americans their homes, their jobs and their savings.
In the aftermath of the crisis, Congress passed the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to make sure banks could never again bring the U.S. economy to its knees. As part of that law, Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The agency had one job: to protect the American people from financial tricks and traps.
American Prospect Op-Ed: Don’t Let Wall Street Run Amok
Ten years ago, just before the onset of the financial crisis, I wrote an article for an academic journal proposing a new agency that would regulate financial products and protect American consumers. I set my expectations low: This idea would go nowhere.