Texas Rep. Ron Paul called Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren a "socialist" Tuesday in a series of Republican presidential candidate interviews hosted by ABC News and Yahoo!.
Warren drew attention earlier this fall for a video of her speaking to supporters refuting Republican arguments that Democrats were waging "class warfare."
She said: "No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own -- nobody." She said even a factory owner who became wealthy used public goods like roads, police and fire, and public education. She added: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
ABC News' Terry Moran asked Paul why Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren was wrong in her comments. "Because she's a socialist," said the libertarian-leaning House member. He added, "her whole argument is absolutely wrong" because "governments are always destructive in the creation of wealth," according to The Hill. When pressed on whether public education was socialist, Paul said, "When the state runs things, that's a socialist thing." He added, "I preach home schooling and private schooling and competition."
The Huffington Post reported that Warren was recently interrupted by a Tea Party supporter who called her a "socialist whore" at a speech in Brockton, Mass. She said later that she felt sorry for him for being out of work, and said she was not mad at him. " There's someone else pre-packaging that poison -- and that's who makes me angry," she said.
Republicans have done their best to obstruct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Warren dreamed up and launched for President Obama. Currently, they're blocking the nomination of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to lead it. Forty-four Senators signed a letter in May opposing confirmation of any CFPB head without changes to the Dodd-Frank financial reform passed in 2010. Cordray's nomination has passed the Senate Banking Committee but has stalled in the full Senate.
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