Sen. Elizabeth Warren talks about Wall Street accountability, military cuts and more during swing through Western Massachusetts

SPRINGFIELD ? Sen. Elizabeth Warren may only be a freshman in Washington, but she looked like a seasoned boxer as she jabbed and crossed during her inaugural Senate Banking Committee appearance last week.

Warren was the pugilist and Wall Street regulators were her punching bags as the Massachusetts Democrat struck at government officials responsible for policing the nation's banking industry. That scrappy side was on display again Sunday during the senator's swing through Western Massachusetts, which included stops at several area churches, a restaurant and Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee.

During the tour Warren revisited a major question from Thursday's hearing: When was the last time the Securities and Exchange Commission brought a Wall Street bank to trial? The short answer: SEC officials said no banks have actually been put on trial for transgressions leading up to 2008's financial collapse.

"I just thought it was the question that should be asked," Warren said during a visit to Spring of Hope Church Of God In Christ, an Alden Street sanctuary in Springfield's Old Hill neighborhood. Warren also thanked the Rev. Talbert W. Swan II, pastor of the church, and his congregation for helping her get elected to the U.S. Senate.

Lingering financial woes and looming defense cuts were among the themes discussed during Sunday's tour.

"We need to understand whether our (financial) regulators are using every tool in the tool box to hold these big banks accountable," Warren said. "You know they sure do it for regular folks. The district attorneys, the U.S. attorneys ? they're out there after everybody and they take them to trial. They take them to trial, they often say, to make an example of them."

The same level of scrutiny and dogged pursuit of malfeasance hasn't been extended to the banking industry, which, in many instances, has gotten off scott free, according to Warren. "It seems like the big U.S. banks, they just get a free pass, and I wanted to ask the regulators why that was so."

It all comes down to accountability for the nation's financial industry, she said. "You can't come into people's neighborhoods and just tear them up. You can't sell terrible mortgage products that cause people to lose their homes. You can't come into our economy and just wreck it ? cost people jobs, cost people their savings, cost people their retirements ? and then say, at the end, 'We're too big to touch,' " Warren said.

Without accountability, she said, "there's nothing to stop them from doing it again and again. We've got to stop that."

At Westover, Warren was expected to discuss how $500 billion in defense cuts might impact the base. The sequestration cuts ? poised to take effect March 1 and mandated by the August 2011 debt-limit deal ? would accompany another $487 billion that's already being cut by the Obama administration.

"I've got to tell you, the sequester is bad for Massachusetts and I'm going to be out there fighting against it every day," Warren said. "A sequester hurts us, and it's just a self-inflicted wound."

Sunday's trip to Westover was intended as a fact-finding mission, according to Warren. "I'm going to Westover today to meet with people in charge to make sure that I've got a complete picture of what sequestration would do to the base, but also our overall plan to be able to save the work that goes on there," she said. "And I want to be clear about this: Save it not just because it's good for Massachusetts and good for jobs here, but save it because it is good for the country, good for our national defense."

The senator said she would be "counting on the folks in charge" at Westover to help her make the strongest possible case for the base.

Another topic of concern for Warren is a measure to freeze federal workers' pay for the third year in a row. Last week, a bill passed by a 261-154 vote in the House of Representatives.

"These guys are just wrong-headed," Warren said, referring to lawmakers who voted for the measure. The bill only serves "to punish families" with members who work for the federal government, she said. "The Republicans in the House want to punish them and say somehow that they're the ones who have to pick up the slack on the deficit," Warren said. "That just not only makes no sense, it is the wrong direction."

Warren is among the Democrats pushing against Republican opposition to re-confirming Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency Warren helped create. Republicans argue that the bureau lacks meaningful Congressional oversight, while Democrats laud that part of its structure, citing the recent $85 million settlement it procured from American Express over billing and debt-collection practices as proof of the agency's worth.

Source: http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/02/sen_elizabeth_warren_talks_abo.html

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