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Date: 7/5/2023
HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College welcomed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge) to campus for a town hall event on June 25, at which the senator discussed ongoing issues she is fighting for in Washington and took questions from the audience.
During her remarks, Warren detailed her work on many issues including universal child health care, fighting for women’s reproductive rights, raising taxes for the country’s wealthiest citizens and corporations and dealing with extremists within the federal government.
Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia introduced Warren and said the senator was a “good friend” in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and in his first two years as mayor. Garcia attended the town hall alongside city councilors and other city officials.
With the event hosted in the HCC courtyard, several questions from the audience were focused on education and student loan forgiveness. Attendees looked to Warren for insight on the reality of real debt forgiveness coming to Americans stuck in decade-plus payment plans for their education.
“If the Supreme Court follows the law — we will find out in the next few weeks — 45 million will see their student loans eased or entirely erased for people who make less than $75,000 a year,” Warren said.
The Biden administration already approved a plan that would cancel $20,000 in debt for students who received a Pell Grant in college and $10,000 for others. The court is expected to rule on a challenge to that plan this month.
“The plan is the Supreme Court follows the law, and if they follow the law, we’re going to get at least that much debt forgiveness,” Warren said. “There are multiple paths for the president to be able to cancel them, but I’m sticking with my view, and that is we don’t need them because the Supreme Court needs to follow the law.”
The town hall event came one day after the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Warren acknowledged the anniversary date and added she has maintained work toward ensuring women’s reproductive rights are protected and returned back on the national level.
“These are not ordinary times that we live in in America. We’re on the one-year anniversary of half the population losing a constitutionally guaranteed right. And extremists in the Republican Party, who don’t plan to stop there, are still going for more,” Warren said.
Warren added the current Supreme Court has “been captured by extremists” due to former President Donald Trump’s appointments to the court.
“This Supreme Court has gotten so far out. They are so determined not to embrace the foundation of how America was built but to advance the agenda of a handful of billionaires and social extremists,” Warren said.
Warren called for adding justices and expansion of the court, something that as a former law professor she said makes her cringe but is needed with the current lean she perceives on the Supreme Court.
On healthcare, Warren said while Massachusetts already has some of the best affordable health care in the country there were still areas to focus on, such as mental health services. She also called for more “progressives” to be supported and elected in efforts to expand total coverage across the board.
During the town hall, Warren stated she was running once again for reelection, and talked about the importance of Democrats gaining control of the House and retaining control of the Senate and presidency. She cited fighting to restore and protect reproductive rights, improving gun safety and boosting housing among the reasons to maintain, or regain, Democratic control in Washington.
“We need to make a bigger federal investment in housing across the country. We need more housing of every kind, housing for first-time homebuyers, housing for people who have no housing at all, housing for veterans, housing for seniors, housing for people with disabilities,” Warren said.
Part of this work involves making sure banking remains “boring and steady” Warren said, through a bipartisan bill that will require big bank executives, board members and other decision makers to give up three years of bonuses and other compensation if their financial institution must be bailed out by taxpayers, a situation that had already happened at a national level this year.
“The idea is if a CEO knows if they load up on risk and cause their bank to fail, that they are not able to keep the profits from that,” Warren said.
Warren added Congress had introduced restrictions to prevent a crash like that from happening again, but oversight was weakened during the Trump presidency and this bill would add those regulations back.
“If we can steady the banking system, we reduce the chances the economy will pitch into recession,” Warren said.