Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a 2020 contender, hosted a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio Friday night where she received thunderous applause while discussing her controversial wealth tax.
“I’m tired of freeloading billionaires,” Warren said Friday night after campaigning across West Virginia earlier in the day.
In January, Warren floated the idea of introducing a two percent incremental wealth tax on those who are worth more than $50 million. A Forbes analysis found that the tax would cost the country’s wealthiest $85 billion a year.
Warren discussed the proposal Friday night and provided a laundry list of the kinds of programs she would pay for with the new taxes.
“Here’s what you can get: universal child care every baby age zero to five. But that’s not all. Universal pre-k for every three-year-old and four-year-old in this country. Raise the wages of every child care worker and pre-school worker to a professional wage level like they’re entitled to. But I’m not through yet,” she said. “We can do all of that and we can make every technical school, two-year college, and four-year college tuition and fee free in America.”
“Tuition and fee free on all of our public colleges and universities—think about this—and we can cancel student loan debt for 95 percent,” she continued, before being cut off by cheers from the crowd.
“And here’s what’s amazing: we can do all of that and still have $100 billion to attack the opioid epidemic head on and bring it to the ground,” Warren concluded.
Mandi Merritt, Ohio spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said Warren’s “billion dollar proposals of hiking taxes and giving government control of health care, jobs, and education would spell disaster for Ohio families.”
“But clearly, nobody knows how to win Ohio better than Elizabeth Warren, as evidenced by her many attempts to prop up Governor Richard Cordray… oh wait,” Merritt continued.
Cordray, who lost the 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election to Gov. Mike DeWine, was spotted in attendance at the Warren rally Friday night.
Rich Cordray at this @ewarren event in Columbus hanging with @darreldrowland pic.twitter.com/0ItllhBxIg
— Plunderbund (@plunderbund) May 10, 2019
Warren was introduced by Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin, who expressed support for Warren’s plan to cancel student loan debt.
While I haven’t endorsed, I heard she has a plan for the student debt crisis…And that means a whole heck of a lot to me and my HBCU brothers and sisters https://t.co/0XWHnVp0VX
— Shannon Hardin (@SG_Hardin) May 10, 2019
– – –
Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Elizabeth Warren” by Elizabeth Warren. Background Photo “Elizabeth Warren Rally” by WBNS.
