MORGANTOWN — Rachel Fetty Anderson, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in West Virginia, criticized corporate monopolies and government policies during a campaign stop at the First Presbyterian Church in Morgantown.
On Saturday, Anderson said Americans lack meaningful freedom when large corporations dominate industries including health care, technology and employment.
She argued that government policies have contributed to suppressed wages and allowed large companies to consolidate control over major sectors of the economy.
“You are not free. You have no liberty at all. And we are essentially living in a time where our government has conspired against us to artificially suppress our wages, to allow ginormous healthcare monopolies, to allow IT monopolies, to allow employer monopolies,” Anderson said.
She said Americans should have the ability to demand that the government use tax revenue to challenge monopolistic businesses.
“They have essentially allowed the corporate monopoly system to control every aspect of our lives, and you can’t tell me that we are free if we don’t have the right to turn to the government and say you will use my tax dollars to break a monopoly,” she said.
Anderson’s position marks a significant contrast with Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who has supported government subsidies for large corporations, which her opponents have characterized as “corporate welfare.”
Anderson won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in the May primary. She is scheduled to face Capito in the November general election.
