by Melanie Wilmoth
A recent video of U.S. Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren, is circulating the internet with fervor. After watching the video, it’s easy to see why it’s such a hit. The video, a clip of one of Warren’s “Talking Tours” through Massachusetts, shows her discussing the debt crisis and her take on fair taxation. Specifically, she challenges the Republican claim that taxing the wealthy is “class warfare:”
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
As Americans, we pride ourselves in our individualism, but Warren has a point: No one becomes successful in isolation. Warren’s talk of the underlying “social contract” and her sense of shared responsibility makes for fresh, exciting political discourse, and I am looking forward to hearing more from her in the near future.
Check out the clip of Warren’s speech below.
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