News Coverage
Boston Globe Editorial: Warren focuses on college debt; Congress must join the debate
ELIZABETH WARREN was elected to the Senate with the expectation that she'd make bold use of her bully pulpit. Her first proposed bill, which would dramatically lower student-loan interest rates, fits that profile. Warren has gotten considerable attention for her bill, which would reduce the interest rate on some student loans to 0.75 percent, the same rate the Federal Reserve currently charges to banks for short-term lending. This has allowed Warren to talk about the need to invest in … Continue Reading
May 13, 2013
Springfield Republican Editorial: Elizabeth Warren's looking out for college graduates
As college graduates begin to grapple with how they're going to pay off their student loans, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has crafted a timely graduation gift for them. Warren last Wednesday introduced legislation - the first Senate bill with her name on it - that would significantly lower interest rates on student loans for one year while the federal government works on a longer term solution to the crushing debt that has limited the prospects of so many of today's … Continue Reading
May 13, 2013
Sun Chronicle: Warren says public can pressure politicians to act on student loans
The U.S. Senate is dealing with issues ranging from terrorist attacks to budget deficits, but freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren chose student loans as the subject of her very first piece of legislation. Warren, D-Mass., told The Sun Chronicle today that she chose to concentrate on student loans because they effect the economy, the security of the middle class, and the state of higher education. More so, the price the federal government charges students for college loans is a reflection of what … Continue Reading
May 09, 2013
Salon: Elizabeth Warren Q&A: Students “deserve the same break that big banks get”:
"The U.S. government invests in big banks by giving them a great deal on their interest rates," freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in an interview with Salon on Wednesday afternoon (the transcript of which is below). "We should make at least the same investment in our students." Warren was discussing the first bill she has introduced in the Senate, a plan released on Wednesday to address the crisis of outstanding student debt - which topped $1 trillion this year, with over 37 million … Continue Reading
May 02, 2013
Patriot Ledger: Students hear from Warren at Plymouth court’s Law Day
PLYMOUTH - U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined 159 South Shore students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the national anthem to begin the Law Day program at Plymouth Superior Court. Warren and the other two keynote speakers, state Senate President Therese Murray and Plymouth District Court Judge Rosemary Minehan, talked to the student about the importance of law in our society. Looking out into the crowd of middle and high school students from Sacred Heart, Plymouth South, New … Continue Reading
May 02, 2013
Cape Cod Times: Elizabeth Warren brings consumer cause to Cape
BREWSTER - U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told a packed house at the Back Nine Cafe on Wednesday to fight to take government control back from big business. "How do Fortune 500 companies pay zero in taxes while college loans go up to 6 percent?" she asked. "This game is rigged." The consumer must "get up and fight," she said. "You've all got to be there to fight." Warren was guest speaker at the Community Development Partnership's annual meeting. It was her first official Cape visit … Continue Reading
April 13, 2013
Salem News: Salem bends Warren's ear
SALEM - The first thing U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren did on arriving at a morning meet-and-greet yesterday was walk directly up to Mayor Kim Driscoll and give her a big hug. In a visit orchestrated by Driscoll - a strong supporter during Warren's hard-fought Senate campaign - Warren met with city leaders and toured the North Shore Community Health Center on Congress Street yesterday. She ended her jaunt to the Witch City by stopping by Salem State University's career services center to chat with … Continue Reading
April 11, 2013
Huffington Post: Foreclosure Review Program's Regulators Take Pounding From Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown
Two prominent Democratic senators levied a withering attack on federal bank regulators on Thursday, accusing them at a Senate hearing of putting the interests of banks ahead of consumers in refusing to disclose what they know about the failed foreclosure review program that ended abruptly earlier this year. Most aggressive was Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and longtime consumer advocate who is quickly developing a reputation as perhaps the Senate's most effective … Continue Reading
April 01, 2013
Patriot Ledger: In Washington, a new push to aid New England fishermen
WASHINGTON - Less than three months after an effort to provide a pool of aid to distressed fisheries across the nation died at the end of the last Congress, efforts to secure disaster relief funding for New England fishermen are heating up on Capitol Hill. Just before Congress left last weekend for a two-week Easter/Passover recess, the Senate passed a bipartisan amendment - sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska - calling for money in the fiscal 2014 … Continue Reading
March 24, 2013
Springfield Republican: Senator Elizabeth Warren, encouraged by nonbinding vote, says time to end subsidies for 'too big to fail' banks
Buoyed by a nonbinding U.S. Senate vote to eliminate billions in subsidies for "too big to fail" banks, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the measure a step toward "leveling the playing field" between megabanks and their smaller competitors and customers. The Senate, in a unanimous 99-0 vote Friday, passed the measure to eliminate the subsidies that big banks receive through lower borrowing costs because of the "implicit guarantee they will be bailed out by the government … Continue Reading
March 19, 2013
HousingWire: Senators Warren, Corker reach across the aisle on GSE reform
Four Senators are crossing party lines to propose a GSE reform bill that, if passed, would prevent the government from using guarantee-fee hikes at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to cover other spending initiatives. The proposed legislation also would prohibit the sale of GSE-preferred shares owned by the Treasury without congressional approval and the completion of GSE reform first. The bill, titled ‘Jumpstart GSE Reform Act,' pulled in four well-known sponsors: CFPB architect and U.S. … Continue Reading
March 07, 2013
Huffington Post: Elizabeth Warren: Banks Get Wrist Slaps While Drug Dealers Get Jail
Sen. Elizabeth Warren unloaded on bank regulators Thursday about the fact that British bank HSBC is still doing business in the U.S., with no criminal charges filed against it, despite confessing to what one regulator called "egregious" money laundering violations. Her comments came just a day after the attorney general of the United States confessed that some banks are so big and important that they are essentially above the law. His Justice Department's failure to bring any criminal charges … Continue Reading
March 04, 2013
Somerville Patch: Sen. Warren Tours Union Square, Blames 'a Minority of the Minority' for Sequestration
Sen. Elizabeth Warren toured Somerville's Union Square Monday morning, and she spoke briefly about the "sequestration" deadlock in Washington, saying there's "a minority of the minority that says no way" to compromise, making progress on ending the deadlock difficult. "People are right to be afraid of sequestration," Warren said. "It's a real problem because it's so mindless." "There are many things we can do to get our house in order financially, and the president has put a very balanced … Continue Reading
February 21, 2013
South Coast Today: Senators sit with fishing industry
NEW BEDFORD - Massachusetts' two newly minted U.S. senators visited the waterfront Wednesday for a by-invitation town hall-style meeting about the state of the fisheries. What Elizabeth Warren and William "Mo" Cowan heard was a broad sampling of many of the deep concerns of those groundfishermen whose livelihoods are nearly gone thanks to catch restrictions. The hour-long meeting at the Waterfront Grille made it clear to them that there is a deep distrust of the government's science … Continue Reading
February 20, 2013
Gloucester Times: Warren hears fishermen's fears
An airing of grievances and an airing of fears rained down on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren Tuesday in her first meeting with the fishing community since she took office last month. The grievances were those of business people, descendants of the nation's earliest industry, who in one form of another had made their way harvesting the sea, but now find themselves trapped by government edicts and policy said to be posing as biology, according to Vito Giacalone, the local port's best known and … Continue Reading
February 20, 2013
Lowell Sun: Sen. Warren sounds alarm on fed budget cuts during Lowell swing
LOWELL -- Sequestration, the automatic government funding cuts that could go into effect March 1, would be especially harmful to Massachusetts, which relies more on federal research funding than any other state, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a visit to the city Tuesday. Warren, hitting areas of the state this week while Congress is on break, stopped at the new Lowell Community Health Center on Jackson Street, then visited the University of Massachusetts Lowell's Emerging Technologies and … Continue Reading
February 19, 2013
NECN: Elizabeth Warren's new role
(NECN: Alison King, Lowell, Mass.) - Massachusetts' senior U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has been in ofice for more than a month, and she's been relatively quiet on Capitol Hill.However, Senator Warren has been very visible back in the Bay State.She told a packed room of UMass Lowell students what she's been up to during her first month and a half in the U.S. Senate, with priorities ranging from gun control to disaster funding for fishermen to dealing with the sequestration."All I can … Continue Reading
February 19, 2013
Boston Globe: Mass. officials, scientists warn about NIH cuts
With little more than a week left before across-the-board federal budget cuts could go into effect, Massachusetts politicians joined scientists and the state's top health care administrators Monday to offer a grim prognosis of the impact National Institutes of Health spending cuts would have on the Bay State, and Boston in particular. NIH grants fund hundreds of millions in research annually at the Commonwealth's hospitals and colleges, and so-called federal sequester cuts could trim … Continue Reading
February 18, 2013
Patriot Ledger: Teenage rescuer from Quincy honored by U.S. Senate, city
QUINCY - Ten days ago, right after the blizzard, teenager Dylan Hughes rescued a 103-year-old neighbor from her cold, dark Quincy home. Now U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is praising the Thayer Academy junior as an example of "the best we can be." Warren visited Quincy City Hall on Monday afternoon to honor Hughes with a senatorial commendation and an American flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol Monday morning. "Dylan represents the best in all of us," Warren said. "The difference is that he … Continue Reading
February 17, 2013
WWLP: Senator Warren tours Westover Air Reserve Base
CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) - If congress doesn't find a way to drastically reduce the national debt by March 1st, $500 billion dollars in automatic spending cuts will go into effect; it's called sequestration. Those cuts would affect military bases around the country, including Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee. On Sunday Senator Elizabeth Warren took a private tour of the Base. The Defense Department has proposed cutting 17 full and part-time positions and reduce its fleet of C-5 cargo planes … Continue Reading
