Elizabeth Warren Warns that the Economy May be at Greater Risk than it Was at the Peak of the Recession

     National attention is focused squarely on the health care debate, but for Senator Elizabeth Warren, there is no fight bigger than the reform of our financial sector.  Despite the fact that the concerns of Americans are steadily moving away from economic issues (Gallup), Warren refuses to back down from her assault on "too big to fail."  At a speech on Tuesday in Washington, she joked that it was good to see that people were still talking about financial reform. However, her joke underlined the recent decrease in Americans' concerns about economic problems, as the Gallup poll shows.  Even given waning concerns about the dire economic problems facing the country, Warren refuses to let the issue go. "Today, the four biggest banks are 30 percent larger than they were five years ago. And the five largest banks now hold more than half of the total banking assets in the country (Huffington Post)."
     She used this moment to highlight the accomplishments and failings of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill which was intended to combat the unregulated, rampant greed of the financial sector which caused the 2008 recession and put a stop to the idea of too big to fail (Mother Jones).  In fact, nearly 60% of the regulation deadlines established by Dodd-Frank have been missed by legislators and thirty percent of the mandated rules haven't even been proposed yet.  Citing the lack of oversight and the failings of lawmakers to follow the rules of the Dodd-Frank law, Warren also used this speech to highlight the importance of her 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act which has been stuck in committee since July (The Nation).  This would "...reduce failures of the big banks by making banking boring, protecting deposits and providing stability to the system even in bad times [...] Big banks would still be big—but not too big to fail or, for that matter, too big to manage, too big to regulate, too big for trial or too big for jail"  Specifically it would reimpose a separation between banks' commercial banking arms and their risky investment arms. By breaking up the banks, It would hopefully make it so that a financial institution's bankruptcy would not spell disaster on a global scale like it did when Lehman Brothers went under five years ago.
     Warren has stayed consistent with her message since long before she was in Congress.  She has put the banks on notice. As long as she has the strength, she will continue to fight the big banks. As she has said many times: "We don't grow this country from the financial sector—we grow this country from the middle class (Mother Jones)." When the banks come out of a financial crisis bigger and stronger than they were before while the middle class sees wages drop and jobs become scarce, Elizabeth Warren is there to remind everyone that there is a massive problem that needs to be solved and so long as she is able, she will continue to fight for the people.