Athol resident Louis “Lou” Marino has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate, intending to run on the Libertarian Party ticket against incumbent Democrat Elizabeth Warren in 2024.

A veteran of several municipal roles as an elected West Springfield public official, Marino announced his candidacy on Saturday, March 11, at the Libertarian Party State Convention in Worcester.

“Man is not free unless government is limited,” Marino told the convention delegates, adding that he believes his “new leadership can deliver results.

Marino feels Warren’s policies represent the opposite of her public statements.

“She lectures about the escalating difference between the super-rich and the poor even as she backs more environmental green energy corporate subsidies that increase the gap between the rich and poor,” Marino said. “Elon Musk became the richest man in the world thanks largely to green energy subsidies backed by Elizabeth Warren.”

Marino noted corporate subsidies — from the TARP bailout program in 2009 to the Export-Import Bank to “green” tax credits — have been one of the primary drivers for the increasing wealth divide.

“I’m not against people being rich. I think everyone should be rich,” Marino said. “I just oppose people getting rich at taxpayer expense, especially when it’s working people footing the bill at taxpayer’s expense for the super-rich.”

Marino believes inflation robs the working poor by taking their only asset, their labor, before they can even possess it.

“Inflation always helps debtors and hurts creditors, and working people always credit their employer their work before they get their wages, just as renters always credit their landlord before they enjoy living in their apartments,” he said.

Marino told the Massachusetts Libertarian Party at the convention when he announced his candidacy that “Massachusetts simply deserves better. Massachusetts deserves a senator who will give more than lip-service to justice, and I’d like to be that senator. I’ll fight the inflation and corporate subsidies that are widening the wealth divide. And I’ll seek an end to America’s undeclared wars while pursuing drastic cuts in Pentagon spending, which is now more than the next 10 biggest armies in the world combined.”

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