Warren: Rivals won't stand up to rich

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AP):

Elizabeth Warren says other Democratic presidential hopefuls are too quick to accept Republican calls for unity rather than standing up to the rich and are bending to the whims of their own wealthy donors. The sharp contrast she is drawing is more evidence that the long-simmering tensions between her party’s moderate and progressives wings are boiling over.

In what her campaign has billed as a major economic speech in New Hampshire, the Massachusetts senator says that despite being nearly a year into the Democratic primary, “no other candidate has put out anything close to my sweeping plan to root out Washington corruption”.

“Unlike some candidates for the Democratic nomination, I’m not betting my agenda on the naive hope that if Democrats adopt Republican critiques of progressive policies or make vague calls for unity that somehow the wealthy and well-connected will stand down,” Warren plans to say on Thursday, according to excerpts released by her campaign.

The speech is the latest round in an escalating fight between Warren and her more moderate rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The division is growing as the first votes of the Democratic primary near and there is mounting concern that no clear front-runner will emerge from the initial slate of contests.

Warren has centred her candidacy on proposing profound structural changes to remake the political and economic system. She wants a two per cent tax on fortunes worth US$50 million-plus and a levy three times that on anyone who has a net worth of more than US$1 billion – and she pledges to use those to offer universal childcare and free tuition at public universities while wiping out most student debt for 42 million Americans and helping to finance a ‘Medicare for All’ plan providing government-sponsored healthcare nationwide.