U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is one of 14 Democratic presidential candidates contending to unseat Queens-born President Donald Trump, but despite slipping poll numbers and donations she was able to pack Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, which has a 3,300 capacity and had an additional 1,500 anxiously waiting to meet her.
Throughout her rally, Warren emphasized her policy plans to protect disabled individuals, rebuilding the middle class, restore economic balance with her two-cent tax and to fight for a green new deal, a climate change economic packaged proposed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Jackson Heights, Bronx).
“2020 is our moment to fight for a Green New Deal and save our environment,” said Warren. “2020 is our moment to fight for a two-cent wealth tax and invest in an entire generation.”
The Green New Deal would focus on decarbonizing the economy by replacing fossil fuel as a form of energy consumption, create a federal job guarantee and public investment in the environment and retraining former workers who were in the fossil fuel business, according to Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal.
Ocasio-Cortez also proposed a Green New Deal for Public Housing bill last year and held a town hall in Woodside that emphasized the need to make NYCHA complexes and other complexes across the country environmentally friendly with renewable energy.
Warren’s two-cent tax on people making more than $50 million a year could draw in $2.75 trillion for the country within a 10-year period, according to Vox.
“You built a great fortune here in America, I guarantee you built it in the least in part using workers all of us helped pay to educate, and you built it in part getting your goods to market on roads and bridges all of us helped pay for,” said Warren. “What can we do with two cents – universal childcare for every baby in this country, universal pre-k for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old, and let’s stop exploiting the women, mostly black and brown who do this work and raise their wages.”
The tax would also help to federally fund K-12 schools with $800 billion, fully fund the Individuals with Education Disabilities Act, fully fund HBCUs, cancel student loan debt and create more union jobs for a more fair economy.
“Let’s make that structural change in this economy,” said Warren.
Warren also highlighted her views on voters’ rights.
“I want to see a Constitutional amendment to protect the right of every American citizen to vote and to get that vote counted,” said Warren. “I want a federal law to ban all political gerrymandering in this country. I want a federal law to rollback every racist voter suppression law in America, and just one more thing, overturn Citizen’s United.”
Citizen’s United is a conservative non-profit that upended restrictions on corporations and unions spending funds on electioneering communication before a primary or general election, which allowed lobbyists and Super Political Action Committees to gain the power to influence elections for their special interests.
To make it for the April 28, 2020 primary ballot, Warren would need to receive 40,000 petition signatures by Jan. 21, according to the senator’s campaign team.
