Warren: Wealth ‘Inequality Is Going to Break This Country’

Thursday on MSNBC’s “Live,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared the current wealth inequity in America was “going to break this country.”

Ruhle asked, “Born out massive inequality here and abroad, we’ve seen the rise of democratic socialism. Would you describe yourself as a capitalist or socialist? There are portions of the democratic party who even consider capitalism as a dirty word.”

Warren said, “No, I believe in markets. I want to get markets to work. I’ve seen benefits that markets can produce. But understand this; markets without rules are theft. We need markets that have curbs on them, that have rules, so that it’s a level playing field. I mean a genuinely level playing field, so that people have a real chance to compete. You know, it’s good that we talk about this in the context of taxes, because when we force those who have made it really big in this country just to pay a fair share of taxes, the point is not punitive. The point is to say you had a great idea, you built a great business, good for you, but remember you built that business using workers that all of us paid to educate. You built that business that uses roads and bridges to get your products to market, all of us helped to build those bridges. And we just want to make sure when you make it big, put something back in so the next kid has a chance, and the kid after that and the kid after that. That’s what this is about. That trillion dollars that this real corporate profits tax would he raise is money we could spend for universal childcare, money to spend to reduce the student loan dead burden, money we could spend to rebuild our infrastructure, so that we can have more businesses do better in this country, and more families do better.”

She added, “Inequality is going to break this country. We can’t sustain a democracy, we cannot sustain an America of opportunity with growing inequality. We’ve got to have some great ideas to push back, big ideas to push back against it, big structural change. Now, this is what my campaign for president is all about. I believe we all to talk about the big ideas about how we deal with inequality, how we built a strong democracy, and a strong economy going forward. And I just want to say to everybody who is watching; if you believe in a campaign build on ideas, go to Elizabethwarren.com, sign up, pitch in some money, volunteer some time, because this is how we are going to rebuild our country and rebuild our democracy in a way that doesn’t just work for a thin slice at the top, but in a way that works for everybody.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN