Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic challenger in the upcoming U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, appeared on MSNBC Thursday following the Republican debate and assessed Republicans as favoring a policy to “invest in those who already made it.”
The Harvard Law School professor is competing in the upcoming Senate race against incumbent U.S. Senator Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican.
Following the Republican presidential candidate debate, Ms. Warren gave her thoughts on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the president’s State of the Union address, and her opponent Senator Brown.
Mr. Romney has received heightened criticism in recent weeks from his rival Republican candidates as well as President Barack Obama’s campaign staff who have tried to characterize him as a wealthy businessman who is out of touch with the voters he is trying to court in the Republican primary race.
During the debate Thursday, Mr. Romney again faced criticism from rival candidate Newt Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich took the Bain Capital co-founder to task for having overseas bank accounts and for paying such a lower tax rate than average taxpayers who earn a much lower salary.
Mr. Romney shot back at the former House speaker, claiming that under Mr. Gingrich’s proposed tax plan, “people like him” would pay an even lower tax rate.
Ms. Warren used the argument between Mr. Romney and the other remaining Republican candidates to show the choice that voters have in the upcoming general election.
“Mitt Romney pays 14 percent of his income in taxes, and people who get out there and work for a living pay 25, 28, 30, 33 percent. I get it, Mitt Romney gets a better deal than any of the rest of us because he manages to earn his income in a way that has been specially protected for rich folks,” said Ms. Warren.
The Republican presidential candidates have called references by Democrats like Ms. Warren to “rich folks” as the Democrats way of promoting “class warfare.”
Mr. Gingrich explained why “people like” Mr. Romney would pay a lower tax rate under his proposed tax plan during Thursday’s debate on CNN.
“It would depend on whether the particular kind of payments he made were counted under that plan as capital gains or whether they were counted as regular income. But even as regular income, he would pay about the same,” said Mr. Gingrich. “My interest is in reducing everybody’s tax here to 15 percent, not trying to raise his to the Obama level.”
The explanation given by the former House speaker was exactly what Ms. Warren was attempting to address during her appearance on MSNBC following the debate Thursday night. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate supports the president in his proposal to reform the tax code to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, regardless of how they earn their income.
A December CBS News poll of registered voters nationwide resulted in 60 percent of the respondents stating that they were in favor of raising taxes on Americans earning $1 million or more per year.
The president has proposed a “millionaire’s tax” that has often been called the “Warren Buffett rule” that would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Ms. Warren tried to put it all into perspective Thursday.
“Do we really believe, that the investments we should be making as a country are all about protecting it for those who have already made it? Or do we believe it ought to be about investing in the future, investing in young people, and honoring the promises we’ve made to our seniors,” said Ms. Warren. “Its not finance, its not economics, its values, that’s really what this is all about.”
