Elizabeth Warren Is 'Mad As Hell,' And Wants You To Be Too

Elizabeth Warren Is 'Mad As Hell,' And Wants You To Be Too

Elizabeth Warren is "mad as hell," and doesn't think anything will change until enough of the rest of the country is, too, she said in an increasingly impassioned answer to a policy question at a Re/code conference Tuesday.

A conference attendee asked Sen. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, a fairly straightforward question: Why isn't the government, with interest rates so low and the country so obviously in need of infrastructure and other investments, doing the common-sense thing, which would be to borrow money at those low rates and invest?

In Silicon Valley, engineers and entrepreneurs are accustomed to devising solutions and implementing them.

"Why aren't we doing that?" the man asked.

"We are not doing it because the people in Washington -- too many of the people in Washington -- do not represent the folks who elected them. They represent the rich and the powerful, who don't want their taxes raised," Warren said. "The only way we get change is when enough people in this country say, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm fed up, and I'm not going to do this anymore.'"

Warren, her frustration becoming evident as she spoke, said that attempts to describe the issues the man asked about as "wonky" are in fact harmful.

"When you say this is the wonkiest conference we've ever had -- no! These have to be the things that you wake up people all over America and say, 'What matters? Whether or not you're going to have a job, whether or not you're going to have a retirement, whether or not your kids are going to have any chance to build a future,'" she said.

Watch the video above, including the exasperated finish.

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