Peter Hasson on October 15, 2019
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made it the entirety of Tuesday night’s debate without giving a clear answer on whether she would raise taxes on the middle class in order to pay for Medicare for All and other massive government expansions.
Warren had avoided answering whether middle class voters would see a tax raise heading into the debate and repeatedly skirted the question when asked by moderators, asserting that “costs” would “go down” for the middle class, while ignoring whether taxes would go up.
Democratic South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg attacked Warren for dodging the question early on in the debate. “We heard it tonight. A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question that didn’t get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. This is why people are so frustrated. Your signature is to have a plan for everything, except this. No plan has been laid out to explain how a multi-trillion dollar hole in this plan that Sen. Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in,” Buttigieg said.
The closest Warren came to answering the question was when former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke pressed her about whether a specific voter would see increased taxes. O’Rourke described a woman he met in Las Vegas who was “working four jobs and raising a child with disabilities” and noted that he wouldn’t raise her family’s taxes if elected. O’Rourke interrupted Warren in her rebuttal to ask, “Will they see a tax increase?”
“No,” Warren said and continued talking about raising wages for childcare workers.
