Politics

Liz Warren Is Confused: Why Do They Think I’m A Socialist?

Robby Soave Reporter
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Just days after proposing a massive bailout of indebted students that would subsidize their college loans and forgive some of their financial obligations, far-left Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said she has no idea why people think she is a socialist.

Her bill, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, would lower the amount of money that students are obligated to repay to the federal government. If enacted, the bill would deprive the federal government of billions of dollars in interest payments owed to its shareholders: the American taxpayers.

It is Warren’s belief that students — who voluntarily signed up for the loans and agreed to pay them back at certain interest rates — should be let off the hook.

Yet on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Warren wondered why people think she is a socialist. When Bob Scheiffer pointed out that Warren’s critics consider her a socialist, she replied:

I just don’t know where they get that. You know, look at the issues. I mean really, let’s take a look at minimum wage — I just believe nobody should work full time and live in poverty. And you know what? Most of America agrees. Student loans: I don’t think the U.S. government should be making tens of billions of dollars in profits off the backs of our students, which is what the current student loan system is doing. And I think most Americans agree with me on that.

It is unclear whether most Americans believe the government should take a huge hit so that students can renege on deals they made to attend universities that they wouldn’t have been able to afford without the assistance of taxpayer funding.

Twenty-three Democratic senators have signed onto Warren’s plan to do just that, however.

In an earlier interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute’s Alex Pollock derided the bill as an effort to punish taxpayers for college students’ bad choices. (RELATED: Liz Warren Wants Feds to Subsidize Student Loans)

“It’s an attempt to increase taxpayer subsidies for student loans by undercharging on the interest rates,” he said.

Warren’s student loan refinancing legislation is the cornerstone of her effort to “level the playing field,” by taking power away from the wealthy, she said in her CBS interview.

She does not identify as a socialist, however.

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