I was very interested in reading a book by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren especially one about saving the U.S. middle class. I found this book in a carton on the street.
Warren reveals that the U.S. pays $153 billion to assist working people who aren't being paid enough to live on. I had understood that at least some of those workers have more than one employer. In fact, I know people like that. Warren points out that we could make every public college free and every preschool if we didn't have to support underpaid workers. We could also double what we pay for veterans' services, for research and development and for transportation. Transportation includes roads, bridges and airports as well as mass transit.
I also learned what Glass-Steagall was. I remembered Warren mentioning it in a speech, but she didn't explain what it did. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was named after its sponsors Senator Carter Glass and Representative Henry Steagall. It prohibited banks from taking major financial risks if they had federally insured deposits.
Warren calls Glass-Steagall a way to "help capitalism work for everyone". Many people think that Elizabeth Warren is a socialist and would be surprised to learn she just wants capitalism to be a fair system that everyone can benefit from if they work hard.
Warren mentions tax cuts that seemed very unwise to me--such as the one that corporations got for investing in foreign businesses and the one that gave corporations a tax cut for having to pay punitive damages for breaking the law. Tax breaks should be reserved for corporate behavior that the U.S. government wants to encourage. Can I assume that our government actually wanted businesses to invest overseas and break the law?
Warren says that college tuition is a tax. She must believe that all colleges should be supported by government. I went to a private university for my B.A. but the graduate school that I attended was at a state university. I had a combination of loans and scholarships at both schools. I wonder what colleges would be like if they had no private donors. If government paid for their offerings, would their programs change because of political priorities? I'm not sure that this would be an improvement. I also think that Warren wouldn't agree to the government funding of religious colleges and universities. She seems to support the separation of church and state.
Warren doesn't think the U.S. government is supporting enough health research. Only two out of eleven research proposals submitted to the National Institutes of Health get funded. She says that one in five biochemists are considering leaving the U.S. in order to get their work funded. So private health related companies such as private health insurance don't fund medical research? Well, I know they do, but maybe Warren doesn't think they are doing enough.
Warren tells us that in the 1950's lobbying was very marginal. A report said lobbies weren't even in contact with Congress. Yet by 2013 corporations were spending $3.24 billion on lobbyists!
The satiric publication called The Onion recommended that the American people hire lobbyists to get their interests acted on in Congress. I laughed, but actually there are many public interest organizations that lobby Congress for a variety of causes. Anyone who is a member of these organizations and/or considers their causes important should feel that their interests are represented by them. If you don't feel that way, you can always call your congressional representatives and tell them how you feel on issues that are important to you.
I liked Warren's book and felt that I learned a few things from it that I knew nothing about. So I'd give it four stars.
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