When I ran for Senate, @ewarren argued climate change is the most existential threat we face today. I replied, climate change is real and a concern, but people being able to afford groceries and pay their rent is the more immediate concern. The single greatest threat to our system, is the ballooning wealth gap. We have eviscerated the American Middle Class and the gap between the Haves and the Have Nots gets worse each year. I ran for Senate b/c my life embodies the American Dream when someone’s given a chance and is willing to work for it. But I question whether that Dream is achievable today. Zohran won b/c of the lack of affordability regular people face in their day-to-day lives. For the first time in my lifetime, children are not guaranteed to do better than their parents, even assuming they have the work ethic to do it. The stats are tragic. 50% of Americans can’t afford a 500 emergency. Needing new brakes or 2 new 🛞 on your car could be the proverbial straw that breaks the financial back. Almost 7/10 Americans don’t have 1,000 set aside in case of an emergency. The top 1% of U.S. households own a THIRD (33%) of the total wealth in this country, while the bottom 50% hold only 2%. In sum, the top 1% collectively own significantly more wealth than the entire bottom half of the population. Credit card debt is 1.2 trillion. Student loan debt is 1.8 trillion. Homes are simply unaffordable. In the Greater Boston area, the average home is over 1 million. MA statewide, over 650,000. Young people can’t afford to move out. During COVID, the federal government gave an extra 600 per week on top of regular unemployment benefits. With the extra 600, about TWO-THIRDS (approximately 66%) of unemployed workers eligible for regular unemployment insurance were making more than they earned while working. For the median worker, the 600 supplement resulted in a replacement rate of about 145% of their prior wages - meaning they received nearly one and a half times their previous income. One in five (20%) workers received benefits at least TWICE as large as their lost earnings. In other words, 20% of workers received 200% more than their normal pay, during Covid, while 66% received 150% more. Think that altered the way folks view government and the workplace? Younger people are looking to the government for answers regarding the lack of affordability they face. When a charismatic leader preaches socialism, with ideas like rent control, lower grocery prices through City owned stores, free buses, child care, universal health care, it sounds like the solution they’re looking for. On top of that, people have witnessed our government practice corporate socialism. During my lifetime, we’ve bailed out the banks, the auto-industry, airline industry, insurance industry, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and the Savings & Loans crisis bailout, to name a few. And this practice of corporate handouts isn’t unique to modern times. How do you think expansion of the transcontinental railroad came about? We gave Railroad subsidies and Land Grants to Union Pacific and Central Pacific. The Union Pacific Credit scandal in the late 1800s revealed executives defrauded taxpayers by inflating construction costs and pocketed millions. Sound familiar to the Great Financial Crisis and the banks? After being given the land - totaling 10% of US Properties - the railroads profited immensely from land sales and freight revenue, while taxpayers got shafted as the government lost over 100 million (in 1870s dollars) on defaulted loans. While we watch our government bail out major corporations, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The printing of money and inflation has devastated the poor and working class. Let’s be real: we have a tax code that favors the wealthy. If we don’t offer real upward mobility and we keep printing money and kicking our problems down the road, don’t be surprised if we see more of results like this one.