Massachusetts' U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took on the cost of student loans Thursday that, in many cases, cripple students financially as soon as they leave college.
Warren says it's a crisis in this country that needs to be addressed now.
"Where we are right now with college loans makes no damn sense," she said while at UMass Boston.
While the political world relentlessly speculates about whether she'll run for president, Warren calmly repeats her mantra: "No I'm not running, and I'm not going to run."
She then quickly transitioned to one of her pet issues, lowering interest rates on student loans, to a standing room only crowd at UMass Boston, where many debt ridden students, such as Ignacio Chaparro, feel Warren is their best hope for relief.
"I've already accumulated $27-28,000 in debt," Chaparro said.
"A starting point is, let's refinance, reduce the interest rate on student loans. The U.S. government should not be making a profit off the backs of our kids," Warren said.
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It doesn't take much to get Warren riled up. Necn asked her about the report that some big banks might withhold campaign contributions to Senate Democrats because of what they see as the negative spin she's putting on Wall Street.
"There are two things I want from the biggest financial institutions in the country. The first one is, I don't want them to be able to cheat people. The second thing, I don't want them to be able to bring down the entire economy. Too big to fail, and if they don't like it, well, they don't like it, bring it on," she said.
It's that kind of feisty talk that has drawn legions of progressive Democrats to jump on the "Draft Warren for President" bandwagon, volunteering to spread literature asking her to run, which was found on necn's car in the parking lot.
So if Warren is so adamant about not running for president, how does she feel about her rabid supporters? When asked, Warren deflected, but she did not call them off.
