Has the GOP message machine on wealth inequality really run so low on ideas?
by David Atkins
If this Judd Gregg column in Politico is the best the right wing can come up with to combat the politics of wealth inequality, I'd say they're in some serious trouble:
We often hear these days, from President Obama and his chorus on the left, that there is massive income inequality in America and that he and his minions are committed to correcting this situation.
It is an interesting observation.
It means that after almost six years of control of the presidency and the majority of the government, those who anointed themselves to resolving the problem now implicitly — but never explicitly — acknowledge that they have failed to do so.
Why after six years of a liberal-progressive government that has taxed high-income folks at historically high rates and redistributed the money, has this issue of alleged income inequality gotten worse?
If this were a business confronting an issue so precisely seen by its leaders, one would presume those leaders would be out of work for not having come up with an effective solution.
But they are not in business; they are the government, where there is no actual accountability.
The president and his followers accept no blame and continue to shout “injustice,” hoping no one notices that they are in charge.
If one gives the president and his spokespeople, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the benefit of the doubt (and the doubt is considerable) on their claims that America is uniquely unjust in its wealth distribution, then why are their policy approaches such an abysmal failure?
First, we must examine the basis of their assumption. They seem to genuinely believe that it is not individuals who generate and create economic growth and thus wealth, but rather they themselves, the elected elite and their bureaucracy.
But in America today, the truly wealthy are for the most part the greatest producers of growth, jobs and productivity in the world’s history .
Just a few names make the point: Mark Zuckerberg; Bill Gates; Larry Ellison; and Steve Jobs, before his death. These are the folks who have developed the ideas and products that have kept the U.S. economy on the cutting edge of world growth.
Under the Democratic Party’s now dominant philosophy, they are people who must be vilified under the label of “too wealthy .”
This may be good political rhetoric but it fuels bad economics. And, when pursued in policy terms, it leads to a bad outcome for the millions of Americans whose jobs and personal prosperity have benefitted from the products these super-wealthy people have originated.
That's the best they've got?
Pretending that Democrats have actually held the reins of government since 2010?
Pretending that tax rates on the wealthy are at historic highs, rather than near historic lows?
Pretending that Mark Zuckerberg has created lots of jobs, or that people actually like rather than tolerate Facebook and Microsoft?
Pretending that computers and social media would never have existed without the biggest players in those fields making billions?
Pretending that most of the super-rich are tech innovators rather than Wall Street tycoons and hedge fund managers?
Gregg then goes on to advocate lower taxes on the rich and then blames teachers unions for not educating Americans well enough because...why not?
It's such a pathetic, half-hearted attempt that it's a wonder Politico even bothered publishing it.
Seriously. If this is the best case the Right can make on wealth inequality, they've got such a glass jaw that it needs punching at every available opportunity.
.