Warren takes swipe at Reagan, trickle-down economics [View all]

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.
The Massachusetts Democrat, who many on the left are pressing to run for president as an alternative to Hillary Clinton, also praised President Barack Obama for efforts she said were aiding the economic recovery, but said most Americans still weren’t seeing their lives improve.

“The trickle-down experiment that began in the Reagan years failed America’s middle class,” Warren said in her fiery keynote address to an AFL-CIO conference on raising wages.

“Pretty much the whole Republican Party, and if we’re going to be honest, too many Democrats, are overly cozy with the financial industry and make decisions that benefit the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans while leaving others to struggle, she said. Over the past 32 years, she added, every penny of America’s economic growth has benefited the top 10 percent of earners, while the bottom 90 percent has been squeezed.

“We know that democracy does not work when congressmen and regulators bow down to Wall Street’s political power,” she said. “And that means it’s time to break up the Wall Street banks and remind politicians they don’t work for the big banks, they work for us.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/elizabeth-warren-criticism-trickle-down-economics-114032.html