WESTERVILLE, Ohio — South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg took Sen. Elizabeth Warren to task in the fourth presidential debate Tuesday over her reluctance to say whether she will raise taxes on the middle class to pay for her Medicare for All vision.
“I have made clear what my principles are here, and that is costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations and for hard-working middle-class families costs will go down,” Ms. Warren said when asked directly whether her plan would lead to middle-class tax hikes.
When given his chance to weigh in, Mr. Buttigieg said voters are fed up with elected leaders that are unwilling to answer “yes or no” questions.
“This is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular,” Mr. Buttigieg said “Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything — except this.”
Ms. Warren has been dogged by the question on the campaign trail ever since Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont acknowledged that his Medicare for All plan would lead to higher taxes, but that people overall would be paying less out of pocket.
Ms. Warren is a co-sponsor of the Sanders proposal, and unlike her rivals continues to fully embrace the bill.
“I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle-class families,” she said.
Mr. Buttigieg said he was shocked that Ms. Warren would not come clean with voters about how she plans to pay for a plan that could blow a hole in the budget and warned that forcing people off of their private health insurance plans would further polarize the nation in a post-Trump era.
“Why unnecessarily divide this country over health care?” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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