Cantor: We Need To Rely On The Wealthy To Address Income Inequality

[ProSense]

Cantor: We Need To Rely On The Wealthy To Address Income Inequality

By Tanya Somanader

The 99 percent movement protests are going global as more and more people seek to register their frustration with corporate greed and injust economic policies. Preferential tax treatment has helped drive the U.S. to its worst level of income inequality since the Great Depression, with the nation ranking more unequal than the Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and Pakistan. Since 1979, “the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled.”

America’s recognition of the indisputable level of inequality is forcing Republicans to back away from their condescending treatment of the “Occupy” protesters. Once concerned about these “growing mobs,” House Majority Eric Cantor (R-VA) is making an about-face. Today on Fox News Sunday, he told host Chris Wallace that the president and Republicans “agree that there is too much income disparity in this country.” Pointing to the public’s “complaint” about the unfair economic playing field, he insisted that Congress should rely on America’s wealthy “to take care of income disparity”:

CANTOR: We know in this country there is a complaint on the folks on the top end of the income scale that they make too much and folks on the end don’t make enough. We need to encourage those on the top income scale to create more jobs. We are about income mobility and that’s what we should be focused on to take care of the income disparity.

Watch it:

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Relying solely on the wealthy to reduce income inequality seems woefully out of touch with reality. Numerous corporations are sitting on enormous profit, paying more to their CEOs than in taxes. Last year, CEO salaries increased by 27 percent while private worker wages increased by only 2 percent. This pattern will hardly help address the disparity.

more

Steve Benen: Cantor discovers income inequality

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Reading from a prepared text on Oct. 7, Cantor told a right-wing audience, “I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.” In apparent reference to Democrats sympathetic to OWS, he added, “(B)elieve it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”

A few days later, Cantor tried (and failed) to make the case that Tea Partiers are legitimate, Occupy demonstrators are not.

Republican pollsters must have told him this kind of talk was a bad idea, because all of a sudden, the oft-confused Majority Leader has discovered some areas of general agreement with the protesters.

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The problem, of course, is that Cantor’s message to these outraged protesters is, in effect, “The best way to address your grievances is to approve more regressive, far-right economic policies.”

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[eShirl]

1. oh yeah THAT'LL HAPPEN! (k&r)

:rofl:

[annabanana]

2. "Could we have some more, Please?"

[HughBeaumont]

3. "We need to rely on these murderers to ease up on their killing!"

:eyes: :eyes:

Forever a useless turd in the swimming pool of life, this one is.

[lbrtbell]

7. +1 million

For both your subject AND your message.

[liberal N proud]

4. That has worked so well to date

What the definition of insanity again?


Oh, yeah, I know: Doing the same stupid thing, expecting a different result.

[Bake]

5. Right. Let's "encourage" the "job creators."

"Job creators" is the biggest bullshit LIE the Pukes have ever come up with!! Encourage them??? How about something a little stronger?

Perhaps a guillotine would "encourage" them!

Bake

[DFW]

6. "We Need To Rely On The Wealthy To Address Income Inequality" Hmmm...

Really? Based on what? The fact that they've been doing such a great job of it up to now?

[LiberalEsto]

8. We need the fox to guard the chicken coop. nt

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. You beat me to the metaphor.

[raccoon]

9. Do they give a flying toot? nt

[Historic NY]

11. Mcconnell, Cantor & Boner are so focused in causing one man to lose his job..

that they forgot about the other 99% who are barely hanging on. By inaction they exasperated the the situation. Hell Cantor told his own constituents to feck off when they wanted FEMA help.

[glowing]

12. The pain of ruining a company should be tied directly to the CEO's

salary. If a company is laying off workers and shipping jobs over seas, the CEO and the board members should not gain extra in bonus money and stock options. If the company can only raise there worker's salary by 2%, then they are at 2%. Also, the gap between the lowest paid and the highest paid salary should be a mandated figure. In order for already advantaged CEO to collect an outrageous sum, they would have to pay the employees that actually do the work, a good pay. AND if the company ships jobs overseas to avoid laws and paying Americans to work, the company would have to pay a higher tax rate and the CEO would have to pay a higher tax rate on his/her salary and bonus money.

There are ways to write laws in order to protect American workers and still allow anyone to make lots of money. The incentive for the top 1% to receive hansom salary's, would be to treat the rest of the employees well too. They would have to share a piece of the pie, or pay more to Uncle Sam so that the Govt can make up the difference from the stingy Scrooges who don't want to pay their workers or keep jobs in the United States.

Its not really hard to make some rules to level the playing field. It just takes politicians from being bought... so that most of us are sold out.

[Raster]

13. The pain of ruining a country should be tied to Congressional salaries.

[starroute]

14. One simple answer is that more jobs will not reduce inequality

As all those fancy graphs we keep posting point out, income inequality is the result of salaries not rising to match gains in productivity -- while those same gains go into bloating the compensation of the CEOs.

We could get the economy moving again and reduce unemployment to 5%, but if the jobs that are created are lower-paying than the ones that were lost, income inequality will only increase as a result.

To really decrease inequality, we need more progressive taxation, limits on outsourcing, and more powerful unions. Without those things, all the job-creation in the world won't do diddly.

[toddwv]

15. Delusional...

[dionysus]

16. uh, we tried that for 30 years, asshole. and the rich people just kept the money.

:puke:

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. on the positive side of this story - when even radical right-wing Republican leaders see the need to

show some sensitivity to the demands of the OWS movement - this is an indication that this glorious new movement is being taken seriously and there is an understanding even from the most reactionary elements of society that the issue of distribution of wealth effectively banned from the market place of ideas for at least the last 30 years is now back and is part of mainstream discussion once again.

[Sheepshank]

18. Still espousing trickle down theories, I see.

CANTOR: We know in this country there is a complaint on the folks on the top end of the income scale that they make too much and folks on the end don’t make enough. We need to encourage those on the top income scale to create more jobs. We are about income mobility and that’s what we should be focused on to take care of the income disparity.

As if the rich are magnanimously self regulating in that area *roll eyes*

[TBF]

19. No, you fucking moron, we will FORCE them to address it -

we've been doing it your way for decades and it doesn't work. Now we'll do it our way.