Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Political Definitions, Childcare, and Hope

We were thrilled to talk with Senator Elizabeth Warren this week. We chatted about how to respond when people accuse Democrats of being socialist, why childcare and caregiving in general are such important pieces of economic success, and why you - yes, you! - give her hope to keep at the work of democracy.

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Transcript

Elizabeth Warren: [00:00:00] You and I are talking to each other and we've got all these people who are listening to us. Why are they listening? Because they care because they are going to make a difference. The people who show up, even if they're not always saying they're totally on board yet, or whatever, they fundamentally believe.

We can make change. We can do it together.

Sarah: [00:00:23] This is Sarah and Beth. You're listening to Pantsuit Politics. 

Beth: [00:00:26] The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Sarah: [00:00:43] Hello, everyone. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. We are thrilled to share with you today our interview with Elizabeth Warren. For those of you who don't know, Elizabeth Warren is the United States Senator from Massachusetts, former professor, former candidate for the democratic nomination for president and currently here to share with all of us what she sees as the future for the American economy, why she thinks childcare is an economic issue and what she does sees are the values and priorities of the Biden administration.

We are thrilled to have her here with us and before we share that interview we just wanted to say, we shared our sort of instant analysis of the vice presidential debate last night for all patrons.So check that out.

We will be with you here on Tuesday with Susan Page, the moderator of that debate, with more in depth analysis this. Until then as always, you can join us on Instagram, where we were having a fantastic conversation about why we will both be voting for Joe Biden. Until then enjoy this conversation with Elizabeth Warren.

Beth: [00:01:54] Well, before we talk with you as a United States Senator and someone who's very involved in the Biden campaign, we wanted to talk with you just as an American citizen about COVID-19 and the way the president has handled COVID-19 specifically this week. You know, my mom has been hospitalized for COVID-19.

She just got home, is still on supplemental oxygen. We know that you have lost a loved one to COVID-19 and we just wanted to check in with you and ask what you are thinking about as you watch the president assure everyone no big deal. Live your lives.

Elizabeth Warren: [00:02:28] I am really sick to hear this. And the reason is partly for the 210,000 families, who've lost someone they love, you know. People who've lost a, a neighbor or friend, for the president to treat this as if it was just nothing, its not nothing to my family. And it's not nothing to yours, but it's also I think about what this means going forward. If we had a president who stood up and said, this is really serious.

Anyone is at risk. Uh, we try to be really careful here in the White House, but the very fact that, that he got sick shows how seriously we have to take this. So everybody wear a mask, everybody washed their hands. And if local conditions say you shouldn't go inside restaurants or stores then please don't do it, that would have been an opportunity to save lives.

That would have been an opportunity to reduce suffering, but to treat this like no big deal, encourages people to do exactly that. Treat it like no big deal. And that means more people are going to get sick and more people are going to die. 

Sarah: [00:03:49] You know, as we take that, not just his response to COVID-19, but the hostility to free and fair elections, we have the Supreme court nominee, it really feels like our institutions are buckling under the pressure. And I remember so vividly during the primary with all of your plans, I thought, Oh, people don't trust government to do big things. And government can't do big things because people don't trust it. And it feels like we're in this defeating cycle.

How do we break out of that? How do we break out of this we don't trust our institutions and so our institutions can't do really big, awesome things to try to build that trust? 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:04:25] Well, it's, it's a wonderful question. Do keep in mind the reason we don't trust government is not something that just happened on its own.

It's not like it's a wall of gravity. The reason we don't is because government has increasingly worked really well for the rich and for the powerful and not so much for anybody else. So just to pick an example over the last four years, what has been really this singular legislative accomplishment of having Donald Trump in the white house and a Republican majority in house in the Senate?

Do you remember anybody? Anybody, a trillion and a half dollar tax cut that went almost entirely to millionaires and billionaires and giant corporations, put our country in a deeper economic hole that our children and our grandchildren are going to be paying for. And what was the other attempted piece of legislation?

It was to try to roll back the affordable care act so that tens of millions of people would lose healthcare coverage and people who had preexisting conditions would lose protection. So when we talk about people lost faith in government. Well, yeah, government is not working for them. And those are just the most recent examples over the past four years.

And it's, there's a lot of that now for a long, long time, a government that works better and better and better for them, narrower, smaller and richer group of folks. So what's the best way you change that? Well, You get in the fight, you elect somebody who sees it and says I'm willing to get in the fight and then you hold them accountable.

I kind of feel like you have the right point at the beginning, and that is the worst government does, the worst is our expectation of government, but the better it does, the more confidence we can put in it. So yeah, we got to turn this around and we've got to put government on the side of the people and that's true in healthcare and childcare and student loan data, social security, you know, we, we've got to turn this around and make it work and we're just going to have to do it. I got to tell you just by, by force of will, cause otherwise its not gonna happen. 

Sarah: [00:07:01] Well, I have to tell you we're so encouraged. There are so many of our listeners who are getting in the fight, who are paying attention for the first time. We get messaged constantly like I wasn't paying attention. I am now they know it's their responsibility to vote.

And many, many of them, especially many of the women in our audience are voting democratic for the first time. And they're being met with accusations of socialism, friends and family who do not understand while they are voting democratic for the first time. 

And can you help us, can you give us words for how to talk about living in a mixed economy, how to value capital, but understanding its limitations? Exactly what you were just articulating and where a Biden administration sees that economy going. 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:07:43] So I would start, you know, when somebody says, well, it's just socialism and you say, you know, I get it with the name calling, because that was exactly what the Republican opponents said when social security was passed.

And in fact, you notice the name of it and it's called social security. And the Republicans said no terrible, awful. It's socialism. No, it's how we all pitch in a few nickels and say over time that when, when it comes time for us to retire, all of us are going to have some basic protection and some income, and we're going to be able to retire with dignity.

And then when the fights in the sixties came around over Medicare, once again, the Republicans rolled out that same line. They said Medicare that's terrible. It's socialism. And nonetheless Democrats pushed it on through and there are millions of people today who are alive because of Medicare and millions, more who don't have to worry about being a burden on their children because they might get sick and then have these huge medical bills.

Um, Medicare has made us a stronger, healthier country. So all we're talking about are the decisions we make as a nation. Do we want to take better care of our children? That's what childcare and pre-K is all about. Do we want to help young people who are trying to get a start in life? And that's what canceling student loan debt and access technical school in two year college and four year college is all about. Do we want to make an investment and expanding housing the way the government did back in the 1950s and sixties? Do we want to make that investment so more people have a chance to buy a home and build up their American dream.

So. I think you first kind of have to inoculate to get the word socialism and then just take it to the specifics because ultimately you're not voting so much for an idea there's voting for the things you want to see changed and what that will say about us as a people, it's about a moral question. Do we take care of each other or not?

 Do we try to find some basic fairness in the system creates some basic fairness in the system or not? 

Beth: [00:10:23] Senator, I want to ask you about another word that gets rolled out by the Republican party though we've not seen much of it practiced by the Republican party over the 

last four years and that's federalism. A component of your plans that I have really come to admire is this balancing between a very big vision for the federal government. But also an interest in deploying that federal power community by community in ways that make sense. I'm thinking specifically about your healthcare plans and your plans to combat addiction and how much you focused on communities.

And I just wondered if you could talk with us about how Democrats think about federalism?

Elizabeth Warren: [00:11:03] So I think of it this way, when it comes to big problems, we've got to tackle, like the problems of addiction around this country, the best way to do this is to say, as Americans, we're all in the boat, we're all in this together.

And the way we identify why that is, we said we all pitch in taxes and that's true. Whether you live in Iowa or Kentucky or Massachusetts or California, those are federal taxes. And then together we say, we want this money to go to the place where we could most effectively deal with the problems as they exist.

So, yeah. Let's follow the problem. If there's a problem, problem, and local communities in Kentucky or in Massachusetts or in California, let's get the money into that community. Now we have a right to ask if we're going to pitch in our tax dollars, that you show that it's being used effectively, that you collect data on it to make sure that's the case.

But if that's the case, We want to invest and help all of our people. And so I think of federalism that way. The federal government can put the resources out there, can identify the kind of program it goes to but it's locally where you understand the best and most effective response. I can give you two quick examples to that.

Up in Northern New Hampshire, I was visiting a rehab center that was residential and you know, what their biggest need was. It was for transportation. There comes a point in people's rehabilitation when they need to be getting out and taking on a job, but they still need to come back at night and be in a more controlled environment.

But in order to do that, when you're living in a remote area, you got to have wheels that's. So when you think about how do I support a program that shows that it's successful? How about we put that money in and they decide, you know, the way we want to use it, we want to buy two vans for our centers. So we can, you know, drop people off in the morning and pick them up in the evenings.

By comparison. You think about what happens, for example, with the tribal nations out West. I've visited tribal nations where they say, I appreciate that you're talking a lot about heroin and how we deal with heroin and fentanyl. But when you have a different kind of drug problem here, we're dealing  with methanphetmines, and you know, some of the treatment is different and some of the ways we want to attack it is different.

We have different cultural traditions, different history, different resources available to us. Or my view is federal government says you've got a problem that fits within this area. We're talking that generally you're putting together a program, show us the numbers. You've got to collect the information here and show it really works as a nation will help invest in that.

That seems to me to be both the most effective ways they do it. And frankly, the way that feels morally right to me.

Sarah: [00:14:34] So we have a lot, a lot of women in our audience with young children. And I'm telling you that to tell you, we have a lot of women in our audience that are huge fans of your Aunt Bee. Either because they have their own Aunt Bee or they desperately wish they had an Aunt Bee. And I think, you know, with saying Covid is just shaking, everything loose.

And we're seeing that in particular with the issues of childcare and, you know, women dropping out of the workforce to either deal with childcare or homeschooling. And it feels like for the first time people are waking up and realizing that childcare is an economic issue. Um, yes. And that we have a real crisis on our hand so that we have a real crisis on our hands. Can you talk about that as somebody who's had their eye on that issue for a long time? 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:15:19] Yep. So what I think of this, there are so many ways to approach this, but the number one way is to say childcare is not just an issue for mamas. It is an issue for everybody, everybody, we all have an interest in having a childcare system that works.

That will be good for our mamas and good for the daddies. It will also be good for the babies and it will be good for the childcare workers, but let me make a pitch to you that might be useful here. It's to think about productivity. Right. That's what economists love to talk about. How do you build a war productive nation and the number one thing that economists talk about when they do this, they say, Oh, war machines.

So we've put all the tax breaks in the federal tax code to say, if you go out and buy a machine, we say this to businesses, we're going to, we're going to help supplement that. You know, we're going to subsidize it as a country. So why, because we want them to do that and be more productive. We also invest collectively in infrastructure, roads, and bridges and mass transit and bus systems.

Why? So people can get to work so we can be a more productive country. So here's the interesting thing you watched GDP in this country go up and you watch it go up in the 1980s, the 1990s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Do you know what the principle reason was? One of the principle reasons mamas women went into the workforce, right?

And so GDP goes up in this country. Now, when. We were first doing it and of course that's when I went into the workforce. When I'm a young mom, basically we just said to moms, you're on your own good luck to you. We got out there, we did the best we could. And of course the point is a lot of folks couldn't make it or didn't make it or didn't try because it was so darn hard around childcare.

So what happens is by the time we hit the two thousands, it just levels out. So many young families just say we can't handle this or mom has to  take a less demanding job, or a part time job in order to hold the pieces together. So here's my pitch. We want to have a more productive nation and in the same way that we invest in roads and bridges, the same way we invest in machines so that we can be more productive.

We need to invest in childcare, whether you have babies or not. You want to see our country prosper? That's good for you individually. You want to see our country prosper then invest in childcare. And I have to tell you, I think about my Aunt Bee, I wouldn't be here talking to you on the phone today. If I hadn't had an Aunt Bee. I would have been knocked off the track entirely.

I was ready to quit my job and who knows. Maybe years later I've could have gotten back on the track. Maybe, maybe not. But I think that it, this way, it was so hard when I was only the second woman hired at the university. When, you know, nobody had ever seen a woman teaching classes in this. For the pioneers it was so hard. 

And today I think it's even harder. And that's the wrong direction for our nation. Our children are precious to us. They are an important resource. And even when there's a stay at home parent, we understand there's a lot of value for children to be able to go to preschool, to be able to go to playgroups, to have those facilities open.

We use, I just think that, you know, as a, as a nation yeah, kind of collectively everybody thought  don't want anything anyway. Now we've learned that. So we talked childcare, we're also talking early learning experiences and opportunities for those babies need well-trained well paid childcare workers and families cannot and should not be asked to bear that burden alone.

 So I think just like you do, this is our moment, we've got this chance. It's, it's risen to the top. It's why, when, when I spoke at the democratic national convention, I spent my time on child care. It's the first time anybody ever spoke on either party at a national convention and made the central issue around childcare.

I think we've got this chance to push childcare to the top of the agenda. And I want to say, and Joe Biden is right there with us on this one. So let's make this habit. It will be transformative for today's mamas but also for our children, when they're mamas and daddies and for our grandchildren, we could make a difference that will just echo through the years and we could do it now, 2021 is our year for this.

Sarah: [00:20:43] Can I just, as a followup, say. Thank you for that because, you know, I don't know if anybody in your team told you this. I cry on our podcast a lot, so don't become alarmed if I start to tear up right now. But you know, I think there's a generational conflict. And I think a lot of women, my age, feel from women that went through it in the seventies and eighties and nineties, this narrative of like, well, we did it.

You should be able to figure it out too. And so to see somebody like you, I know, and it's really hurtful. I think, I think it's really hurtful. And so to see you stand up there and say, It doesn't affect me. And I had to make all this stuff happen, but you shouldn't have to go through that. You shouldn't have to do what I did is so incredible, really powerful to women who have little kids who are of this generation now, now.

And so I don't know if I have a question except just to say thank you cause I do, I think there is some generational conflict and sort of hurt feelings for a better phrase. 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:21:37] That's so sweet of you to say that. But this is something that really troubles me in our nation right now, the idea that somehow if I'm not going to cash in on it.

You know, I'm not going to be taking my child to childcare because my children are grown and have their own children now that somehow I shouldn't support it. That I don't have any, any obligation or any interest in the rest of us. And it just has to be fundamentally wrong. That's not how we build a strong country and it can't be the kind of people we want to be.

I watch today. Y'all mamas here, just her trying to hold it all together. I get on zoom calls with, Oh my God, which young women who who have run for public office. And now here they are and the state legislature and their trying to bounce a baby on the knee and keep a toddler pants up while, you know, while he's running around behind him.

And I feel like we all try to be open and we laugh about it and try to create the kind of environment where that's okay. But at the end of the day, To me, it just says how we are failing as a nation. If we truly believe in the future, then we have to believe in our children. And if we truly want to invest in that future, we have to invest in the peoplewho are raising those children. 

And that means we have to invest in the mamas and the daddies and the way we do that, as we invest in childcare and look, I'll do both hats. We also should be investing in elder care, taking care of seniors. This is a serious, serious issue and problem that gets more acute every year, uh, and taking care of people with Alzheimer's and with dementia with longterm medical needs.

 This is what we have to do as a nation, the caring economy, we've got to take care of each other, and that means take care of the little ones. Take care of the, the old ones. And for the folks in between make it easier for them to work and produce a lot and work in lots of different ways.

Some will stay home and stay with their families and, you know, good for them. That's how they want to do it. It can make it work for their families, but by Dolly, the structures ought to be set up that we are taking care of both those who are in most need and the people who take care of them.

Beth: [00:24:34] I think what you just said about being concerned about this mindset that I don't want to contribute to something, unless I directly and immediately benefit from it reflects kind of our failure to have a sense of what shared American prosperity can look like. 

And in my conversations with people in my life who are resistant to voting for Democrats, what I hear is that kind of zero sum sensibility, that Democrats, when they talk about policies that are inclusive toward people of all races, inclusive of people with disabilities, inclusive of immigrants, what they hear instead of, I want to include everybody to get us to a shared prosperity is I want to take from you.

And I wonder if you could talk about why inclusive policies benefit the economy and how we can connect, have more of a sense of shared prosperity? 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:25:29] You had it exactly right. The more inclusive we are, the more prosperity we could build. So for example, just think about it this way. We're in the 21st century, it's a knowledge based economy, right?

A hundred years ago, you could really make it if you had a good strong back, right. And could lift a lot of things. Well, Today, there's just a diminishing number of jobs for which that's going to be the key thing. Mostly, you got to know a lot of stuff and that's true in all kinds of jobs. Look at the things now that people study who are, who are electricians and welders the trades, for example, God, how much science they need to know and engineering and all kinds of new tech safety procedures.

There's just, there's not an area where you can escape the importance of knowledge. So, okay think of it this way. As a nation, how do you make us more prosperous going forward? Well, I tell you what I really want to invest in brains. How do we invest in smart? And that means I want to invest in the kids.

And it starts when they're little. I want little babies to have bigger vocabularies and to have seen more things. I want kids in K-12 to have seen lots of the world and learn, not just reading and writing. I want them to know a lot of math and science, and I want them to know about computers. I want them to know about the world.

I want them to speak more than one language. I want to see all of those things and I want to see every kid who's willing to get out there and work for it. I want to see them get a technical degree, a two year college degree, a four year college degree, because as a group, we are smarter and more engaged and have more training and have more understanding of the world. 

Then we can produce for ourselves and for the rest of the world, that will make us a more prosperous nation that will protect our democracy. That will make us strong around the world. But to do that, you kind of start early and you gotta be willing to take some of what you have now and put a little as those taxes into supporting those kids.

And let me say another part. It's not always that you need to pay more taxes. You need to be willing to stand up. We need to be willing to stand up to the giant corporations that don't pay any. So last year, Amazon. 11 unbelievable billion dollars in profits. You know how much they paid in taxes? Zero. Nothing!

So you're paying to try to keep things going, but not Amazon. And that's true. There are companies in the fortune 501 after another, after another that paid nothing that paid a hundred dollars that paid, you know, they just didn't pay a fair share. And when they don't pay it, It falls to you to have to pay it.

You're the one who has to keep the roads and, and the, you know, the military, uh, fed and, uh, and the bridges safe. So the way I think about this, it's not even you necessarily have to reach into your own pocket. It's the have to be willing to put some political muscle behind saying, okay, I want to be in America that doesn't prioritize Amazon's profits and kowtowing to the, to the campaign contributors and lobbyists that get out there on behalf of Amazon. I want to be an America that says everybody pays a fair share meaning those giant corporations, meaning the billionaires. 

And then we take a chunk of that money and invest so every kid gets an opportunity. Can I give you one more on taxes? Because it's so interesting to me. I mentioned the big corporations, but let me mention for one second rich folks. So the 99% paid in taxes last year, about 7.2% of their total wealth. Think about that. Okay. 7.2% in a year, just everything all in.

Do you know what the top one 10th of 1% paid 3.2% less than half. So this idea of the zero sum, somebody has been filling it and it's probably been rich people with giant corporations. This isn't zero-sum, it's investments that build a future. Paid for by asking the folks at the top, just to pitch in a little more, we could do this.

We can totally do this. 

Sarah: [00:30:45] So Senator, I don't feel like you engage in a lot of doom scrowling like the rest of us. I don't know how that is, but I just don't see you late at night, scrolling through Twitter. How do you keep so hopeful because it doesn't ever feel like an empty positivity to me. I always say like, you start talking and I feel like an adult's taken the wheel and we're going to get there safely after all.

How do you do it? Can you give advice to the rest of us who may be engaged in doom scrolling from time to time? 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:31:09] You know? So the first way I did, if I always look at the underlying piece of what's happening, you and I are talking to each other and we've got all these people who are listening to us, why are they listening?

Because they care. Because they are going to make a difference. You know, every time I get to give a speech or I go out and talk to folks or on a zoom call now I'm always reminded the people who show up, even if they're not always saying they're totally on board yet, or whatever. They fundamentally believe we can make change.

We can do it together. And it's there. You have so much power and everybody listening to this has so much power. We put your cup of power and my cup of power together. If it's Sarah and Beth and Elizabeth and all the folks on this call, you know what we get childcare done and if we get just childcare done, the world looks different, but why stop there?

We get changes in social security. We can do that to. And then IRS. And we can do that too. I just feel it out there. I know what we can do. And I know how many people it's right where you started this, this podcast you started by saying. There are so many people who said I didn't use to be involved, but now I realize how important this is. Boy are you kidding? I hear that kind of thing. And, Oh man, I'm ready to get this done. 

Sarah: [00:32:45] I was gonna say I love Sarah and Beth and Elizabeth. We can do that any time, any time at all. Love the sound. 

Elizabeth Warren: [00:32:50] Lets do it. Lets do it.

Beth: [00:32:52] Thank you for being so generous with your time and for all of your service and for being here with us today, we really appreciate it.

Elizabeth Warren: [00:32:59] And thank you. And thank you. For being out there with all of these folks to remind everybody what we can do. And a big part of that is going to be that we're going to get out there and we're going to vote and we're going to get our neighbors, friends, family, and cranky uncles, and everybody to vote on November 3rd.

And then we're all going to have a party for a day. And then, we're gonna say right back to work, cause we're going to hold all those people we elected accountable to make the changes that reflect our best values and let us build a strong America.

Sarah: [00:33:41] Our eternal gratitude to Senator Warren for joining us here at Pantsuit Politics until next week, love your people. Go outside, take some deep breaths. Keep it nuanced y'all

Beth: [00:34:04] pantsuit politics is produced by Studio D podcast production. 

Sarah: [00:34:08] Alise Knapp is our managing director. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth: [00:34:13] Our show is listener supported special thanks to our executive producers. 

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