Politics
Out of context: Reply #19017
- Started
- Last post
- 33,462 Responses
- utopian0
Why Republicans Can't Convince People They Care About Inequality.
American income inequality is a disaster for Republicans. Not for their donors, who are the principal beneficiaries of the new Gilded Age -- but for their politicians.
Consider Phil Gramm. Last week, the former Republican senator from Texas was the principal GOP witness at a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. His task was, essentially, to spout Republican-friendly econ talk for a couple of hours, and blame all of the nation's economic woes on Democrats.
Gramm used this platform to bemoan the plight of the super-rich.
"It's the one form of bigotry that is still allowed in America, and that's bigotry against the successful," Gramm declared.
He went on to describe his "good friend Ed Whitacre," a former AT&T CEO who was pilloried for accepting what Gramm described as a $75 million retirement package (it was actually $158.5 million). According to Gramm, the payout should have been even bigger.
"He added billions of dollars in value," Gramm said. "He was exploited! It was an outrage!"