“Democrats win elections when we show we understand the painful economic realities facing American families and convince voters we will deliver meaningful change. To put it bluntly: if we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses in the midterms,” Warren wrote in an April 18 op-ed published by The New York Times.
Prior to the 2020 elections, Democrats advanced several plans, but “Republican senators and broken institutions” have stalled progress on such plans in hopes of hurting Democrats’ chances of getting reelected, Warren said.
Republicans, she said, “want to frame the upcoming elections to be about ‘wokeness,’ cancel culture and the ‘militant left wing'” and accused Republicans of peddling “lies, fear, and division.”
Warren listed several points to be implemented urgently by the Democrat government to gain an advantage in the midterms:
- Rooting out corruption among government officials, something the senator says is of “top concern.” Washington should also begin “cleaning up government,” including banning members of Congress and their spouses from trading or owning individual stocks.
- Reining in inflation by stopping private companies from “jacking up prices.”
- Strengthening antitrust laws, breaking up monopolies, and taxing windfall profits.
- Plugging “tax loopholes” for the rich, and putting in place a “global minimum corporate tax,” while ending the practice of “wildly profitable corporations” paying little to nothing in federal income taxes.
- Ending some student loan debt to “close gender and racial wealth gaps.” Warren claims that women shoulder the most amount of student loan debt and that a higher percentage of black and Hispanic students take on debt to attend college than white students.
- Lowering the price of prescription drugs and ensure that more workers can be made eligible for overtime pay.
While some of the plans can be executed by presidential authority, others would need to be passed in the Senate. If Republicans wish to block the passage of policies that “Americans broadly support,” they should be made to cast votes in plain view, Warren wrote in the op-ed.
The Democrat’s article comes at a time when the Biden administration is facing increasing scrutiny from the public on multiple fronts like the supply chain crisis, record inflation, COVID-19 mandates, the southern border crisis, and so on.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, believes Democrats have a tough road ahead when it comes to holding the Senate and the House of Representatives, according to Politico. While Democrats currently have a thin majority in the House, they have exactly half the seats in the Senate, with only Vice President Kamala Harris to tip the scales in their favor by a single vote.
“Most Americans have never experienced high inflation like this, particularly on gas prices, and it has gotten everyone very upset,” he said. “Behavioral economics reveals that people hate inflation more than they love a low unemployment rate. And the pandemic still colors everything. People have been through the wringer.”