Elizabeth Warren Quotes

I know what I am in Washington to do: I'm here to fight for hardworking families.

Families are going broke because they buy too much stuff!

In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can't otherwise win their fights through elections, can't win their fights in Congress, can't win their fights for the Presidency, and can't win their fights in Courts, For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left - a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.

The bankers might not have said it in so many words, but gradually their strategy emerged: Target families who were already in a little trouble, lend them more money, get them entangled in high fees and astronomical interest rates, and then block the doors to the bankruptcy exit if they really got in over their heads.

It is not the job of the Department of Education to maximize profits for the government at the cost of squeezing students who are struggling to get an education.

Citigroup has a lot of money, it spends a lot of money, and it uses that money to grow and consolidate power. And it pays off.

Balancing your money is the key to having enough.

Washington is rigged for the big guys - and no person has more consistently called them out for it than Jon Stewart. Good luck, Jon!

Who is Antonio Weiss? He's the head of global investment banking for the financial giant Lazard.

The core of my career is my teaching and my writing.

The bankruptcy wars changed me forever. Even before this grinding battle, I had begun to understand the terrible squeeze on the middle class. But it was this fight that showed me how badly the playing field was tilted and taught me that the squeeze wasn't accidental.

What we collectively decide about how to bail out our economy, how to pull our economy out of a ditch and what rules we put in place to make sure this problem does not happen again, will shape our country for the next 50 years. This is it.

We need to hold Wall Street accountable for issuing the kinds of deceptive loans that nearly brought our economy to its knees in 2008.

President Obama believes in a level playing field.

Paul Ryan looks around, sees three unemployed workers for every job opening in America, and blames the people who can't find a job.

We've seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies - you name it, there's been a filibuster.

Being Native American has been part of my story I guess since the day I was born,

What I've learned is that real change is very, very hard. But I've also learned that change is possible - if you fight for it.

I think Hillary Clinton is terrific.

No matter how good a deal sounds, if your name goes on the bottom line, you need to understand it and be sure you'll be able to pay. You are responsible for yourself forever. Forever.

Enforcement isn't about big government or small government. It's about whether government works and who it works for.

Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.

It's so easy to focus on what could go wrong, on what else you could do before you try the thing you really want to do. No. Just get out there and try.

Democrats fought to get health insurance for more Americans. Democrats fought for a strong consumer agency so big banks can't cheat people. We fought, we won, and we improved the lives of millions of people - thank you, President Obama!

If the big banks expect to buy influence when they give money to favored think tanks, then the public has a right to know. If the big banks don't expect to buy influence and are merely making charitable contributions, then their shareholders have a right to know. Either way, there's no excuse for keeping these payments secret.

I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People - powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders. I

Starting in 1792 with George Washington, there were financial crises every ten to fifteen years. Panics, bank runs, credit freezes, crashes, depressions. People lost their farms, families were wiped out. This went on for more than a hundred years, until the Great Depression, when Oklahoma turned to dust. "We can do better than this." Americans said. "We don't need to go back to the boom-and-bust cycle." The Great Depression produced three regulations:
The FDIC-your bank deposits were safe.
Glass-Steagall-banks couldn't go crazy with your money.
The SEC-stock markets would be tightly controlled.
For fifty years, these rules kept America from having another financial crisis. Not one panic or meltdown or freeze. They gave Americans security and prosperity. Banking was dull. The country produced the greatest middle class the world had ever seen.

My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack.

Meaningful rules in the consumer credit market can accelerate economic recovery. Rules would increase consumer confidence and, more importantly, weed out all the tricks and traps that sap families of billions of dollars annually.

The need for comprehensive reform must not blind us to the urgency of addressing the massive debt that's already crushing our young people.

They barely have time to fend off calls from angry creditors, let alone write letters to Congress. And most are profoundly, desperately ashamed of their situation. For many, the decision to file for bankruptcy proves to be the darkest secret of their entire lives. Politically speaking, they are almost invisible. And yet these families were up against what was already one of the best-organized, best-funded lobbies in America. (It would get even better organized and better funded in the years to come.)

We need a new model: If you can't explain it, you can't sell it.

In the 1960s, a minimum wage job would keep a family of three afloat.

The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. It happened more than three years ago, and there has been no real accountability, and there has been no real effort to fix it.

When people feel like, 'Lenders weren't fair with me; I don't have any responsibility to be fair with them.' If we go far enough down that line, much of the fabric of our economy starts to unravel.

You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads that the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

Everyone would like the world always to be in bubble times. But that doesn't happen.

I once had half a cup [of coffee], twenty years ago, and I'm still working it off.

The poor pay more, and that's one of the reasons people get trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder.

If nobody can sell mortgage-backed securities based on trillions of dollars of unpayable instruments, there's a lot less risk in the overall system.

The trickle-down experiment that began in the Reagan years failed America's middle class. Sure, the rich are doing great. Giant corporations are doing great. Lobbyists are doing great. But we need an economy where everyone else who works hard gets a shot at doing great!

I hope Hillary Clinton runs for president.

I want millionaires and billionaires and Big Oil companies to pay their fair share.

If President Barack Obama had not been in the White House, we would not have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today.

America's middle class is getting hammered, and Washington is rigged to work for the big guy.

I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody.

It takes money to run political campaigns. This is a cancer growing on the soul of our democracy.

Truly successful lives are about family.

The playing field isn't level, and the people at the top often don't notice that. Perspective matters - it matters. Because a multi-millionaire can say to himself, 'I give away money to the poor, and I've never shoved a poor person in line' (if rich people ever actually stand in lines) - 'so I'm a good guy.' And therein lies the danger. The 'I'm a good guy' standard doesn't work. Sure, there are rich people who use their money for good causes that do nothing to advance their own financial interests. But when people with money use their money to get more money, they aren't evil, they're just acting rationally. And they're also acting rationally in the narrowest sense of that word when they use that money to buy favors from the government. But when they buy favors from the government, they are taking something that belongs to the rest of us. And when enough rich people or rich corporations buy enough favors, the whole economic and political system starts to tilt their way.

And if the American people allow this to go on long enough, there will come a point when the rich and powerful will be using so much of their money to buy so much influence over our government, that it will unwind the whole premise of democracy.

Instead of one person, one vote - giving each of us a say in how this country is run - we will become an oligarchy, a nation in which the powerful few make sure that the government runs in order to serve their interests.

The people who are filing for bankruptcy in increasing numbers every year, it's not the poorest. It's not the people at the economic fringes. It's people who worked hard and played by the rules.

Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected. Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to entertain the improbable opportunity that comes looking for you.

Keep a little space in your heart for the improbable. You won't regret it.

President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future so we can create new opportunities so the next kid can make it big and the kid afer that and the kid after that, that's what President Obama believes.

You can't predict it all. People will tell you to plan things out as best you can. They will tell you to focus. They will tell you to follow your dreams. They will all be right.

Otis, on the other hand, didn't miss home a bit. He had always hated the stairs in our house in Massachusetts. He was now five years old and very large for a golden retriever. I thought he was fat, but Bruce insisted he was just "big-boned". Either way, climbing the steep stairs at home was a challenge. Whenever Bruce and I went upstairs, Otis would sit near the bottom step, carefully calculating whether we would be on the second floor long enough to make it worthwhile to heave himself up the stairs. And on the way down the stairs, Otis was like a fully loaded eighteen-wheeler barreling down a steep hill. We just got out of his way.
But in the new Washington apartment building, Otis had an elevator. As far as he was concerned, life was sweet.

Big corporations have money and power to make sure every rule breaks their way; people have voices and votes to push back.

If the notion on this is we're going to elect somebody to the United States Senate so they can be the 100th least senior person in there and be polite, and somewhere in their fourth or fifth year do some bipartisan bill that nobody cares about, don't vote for me.

Credit cards are like snakes: Handle 'em long enough, and one will bite you.

You have to remember: what are incomes to banks are outgoes to families.

Accountability for the largest financial institutions on Wall Street is the bedrock for a strong economy. Hard-working families and honest businesses cannot survive in a world where the rules don't keep the marketplace honest.

Too often, people get jobs based on who they know - not what they know.

We all understand that we are living longer, and we are more likely to spend more years as frail, elderly people who can't work. We also recognize that the wonderful advances in medicine also come with wonderful price tags. Those are things you can't budget around.

Consumers get used to reading and understanding their credit card contracts, their mortgages, their check overdraft agreements, those are good things. That puts power back in the hands of consumers.

A lot of people think that regulations bring higher costs, but regulation is also about making sure that someone doesn't get to beat out the competition because they're dumping filth in the river or spewing poisons in the air.

The choice before us is simple. Will we continue to subsidize the dirty fossil fuels of the past, or will we transition to 21st century clean, renewable energy.

In effect, two men - excuse me, two billionaires - turned a United States senator 180 degrees merely by threatening to spend big money. And they did it so brazenly that Senator Moran had to publicly humiliate himself to satisfy the brothers' demand....
My sympathy level for anyone who gives in to this kind of pressure is exactly zero. If my job ever depends on pleasing a couple of billionaires, I'll quit.

Adjusted for inflation, somebody going to college today to a state university, is paying about 300 percent of what her mom or dad did just 30 years ago.

Like a lot of you, I grew up in a family on the ragged edges of the middle class. My daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. After he had a heart attack, my mom worked the phones at Sears so we could hang on to our house.

G.E. doesn't pay any taxes, and we are asking college kids to take on even more debt to get an education and asking seniors to get by on less. These aren't just economic questions. These are moral questions.

Consumer banking - selling debt to middle class families - has been a gold mine.

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people.

I'm happy that the GDP is up and unemployment is down. Yay! But I'm not drinking champagne. In fact, I'm hitting alarm buttons everywhere I can. Our once-solid middle class is in mortal danger - in danger and running out of time. Every one of those happy numbers is used by nearly every economic reporter and pundit and politician, but those numbers paper over the fact that America's middle class is literally disappearing. NO

Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits. Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones the direct our economy and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that?

Women tend to vote the economic interests of their families and to speak out on family economic issues. For men, there's often much more focus on the idea of personal failure: "If I'm not winning this great economic game, it must be my fault."

Families rely on financial services more than ever, but those who need them most - who struggle to make ends meet - too often must contend with sky-high interest rates and tricks and traps buried in the fine print of their loan products.

Other countries around the world make employees and retirees first in the priority. For example, in Mexico, the bankruptcy laws say if a company wants to go bankrupt ... obligations to employees and retirees will have a first priority. That has an effect on every negotiation that takes place with every company in Mexico.

There are lots of families who - who make irresponsible purchases. There are also a lot of families who have debt on credit cards because they use those credit cards to pay for medical bills.

Credit card agreements run as long as 30 pages, and it's 30 pages of largely incomprehensible text.

People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters.

This country isn't working for working people. It's working only for people at the top. That's not the American dream. That's the American nightmare.

Evidently there is no need for delay, no need for further study, if the government takes a loss and Wall Street makes a profit, but it is absolutely necessary to delay if homeowners might have a chance to cut their mortgages and stay in their homes. This is wrong, and it is time to fight back!

Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

Refinancing won't fix everything that's broken with our [American] higher education system. We've got to bring down the cost of college. And we need more accountability for how schools spend federal dollars.

I grew up in the Methodist church and taught Sunday school, and one of my favorite passages of scripture is, 'in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' Matthew 25:40.

A good education is a foundation for a better future.

Does anyone believe that Goldman Sachs is gonna give up a deal that would yield millions of dollars because someone fussed at them behind closed doors?

Americans are fighters. We're tough, resourceful and creative, and if we have the chance to fight on a level playing field, where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot, then no one - no one can stop us.

The women who file for bankruptcy played by all the rules, but they are still in economic freefall.

It's a story about what's worth fighting for, and how sometimes, even when we fight against very powerful opponents, we can win.

The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message. It tells people that one - and only one - point of view will dominate economic policymaking.

Mitt Romney is the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people.

There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory ... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

The banks lobbied Washington so they could write the rules that got us into this crisis. They then lobbied Washington to get the money to bail them out. And then they are lobbying Washington to write the rules so they can get us into the next crisis. It's perfect circularity.

Rising student-loan debt is an economic emergency.

It doesn't make me happy to go back and talk about how great high school was.

How do you think we build a future? I think we build it by investing in our kids and investing in education.

When she was 16, my grandmother, Hannie Reed, drove a wagon in the Oklahoma land rush.

I grew up in a family that nearly lost everything, but I ended up in the United States Senate because I grew up in an America that invested in kids like me and built a real future for us.

When you have no real power, go public
really public. The public is where the real power is.

Others have said it before me. If you don't have a seat at the table, you're probably on the menu. And so it is important that we have women in the United States Senate - strong women, women who are there to help advance an agenda that is important to women.