Robert Reich Takes On Ryan Adviser Who Claims Income Inequality Is Not A Problem

[Scuba]

http://crooksandliars.com/2013/12/robert-reich-takes-ryan-adviser-who-claims

Here we go again with another one of these Third Way flacks making their way onto our airways -- although this one has moved onto the Manhattan Institute and working as an economic adviser for Rep. Paul Ryan. From this Friday's The PBS Newshour, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich joined Scott Winship to discuss the expiration of unemployment benefits and " mounting concerns over inequality and lack of opportunity."

To no one's surprise given his background, Mr. Winship did his best to try to convince the viewers that lack of upward mobility and record income disparity in the United States is really no big deal.

Business Insider ran a piece on Winship last month, who is apparently working on some big plan that's supposed to be unveiled this spring, and surprise, surprise, he's a big fan of "entitlement reform" a.k.a. gutting our retirements and earned benefits, and he really likes tax cuts, vouchers and the earned income tax credit as opposed to increasing the minimum wage; or in other words, the same trickle-down economics conservatives have been pushing that haven't worked for decades now. You can read that entire article here: Meet The Man Who Wants To Help Paul Ryan Solve Poverty.

ROBERT REICH: Well, besides slower economic growth -- and I do think the studies predominantly do show that -- and, intuitively, it's obvious -- beyond that, you have a kind of corruption and eroding of our democracy. When more and more money accumulates at the very top, so does, inevitably, political power. As the great American jurist Louis Brandeis once said, we can have a great deal of money in the hands of a few people, or we can have a democracy, but we can't have both, because money inevitably of that degree, as in the late 19th century, now, does corrupt and undermine with lobbying and campaign contributions our democracy.

More, inluding video, at the link.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[arthritisR_US]

3. I'm with her! K & R. nt

[xchrom]

2. du rec.

[Turbineguy]

4. It's not a problem.

When you are a republican, problems are not problems if they are other peoples' problems. Now if your fantasy economic theories don't work in the real world, that's a problem. But the fix for that is to alter reality and you have Fox News and RW Hate Radio to help you.

[rgbecker]

5. Reading the interview with Scott Winship makes me vomit.

http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-winship-2013-11

"On the right, where boldness is required, is telling people that we can’t continue to spend the amount that we’ve committed to the future and that there are going to have to be sacrifices. The Chairman (Paul Ryan) has been admirably bold in really being upfront about that message. I really admired his entitlement reform proposals.

Ultimately, I think it’s important both politically but more importantly, substantively, for the right to offer something positive to the poor and middle class and to have some element of a mobility opportunity agenda that does offer them something from the federal government. That’s tricky because conservatives admirably worry about perverse incentives. It’s really easy to reduce poverty if you just give cash to people but obviously, that causes people to work less. It causes them to behave irresponsibly in other ways. Quite rightly, conservatives have been trying to figure out how you deal with this problem of perverse incentives.

The other thing that I think conservatives emphasize admirably is that we spend a lot of money on social programs that are intended to promote mobility and a lot of them there’s just no evidence at all that they make much of a difference."


But he concludes the interview with this: "It’s an interesting idea. I do think it’s dangerous to give everybody a minimum income without any strings attached. On top of that, I think it’s interesting to think about giving workers a guaranteed income, which is kind of what the earned income tax credit does. I think it would be a good idea for are workers who are married parents rather than unmarried parents to receive something of a bonus or an incentive in the same way – maybe there’s a different guaranteed minimum income for them. In some ways, it is a compelling approach. A guaranteed minimum income for workers is certainly appealing."

I guess in the end, its all about the "Glory of True Love".

[Gothmog]

6. This guy is an idiot

I hate these idiots who keep preaching the theory that tax cuts cure all problems.