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Monday, February 16, 2015

Why Republicans Are Suddenly Talking about Economic Inequality

For decades, Democrats have been the party that emphasizes concerns about inequality. So why are many top Republicans — including a number of the party’s presidential hopefuls — talking about the issue?

“Issue ownership” theories predict that parties and candidates will emphasize issues on which they have an advantage — specifically, ones in which the public tends to see their party as more competent. For instance, Democrats historically “own” education and health care, while Republicans are typically seen as better on crime and national security. Given that theG.O.P. has prioritized economic growth and opportunity over distributional concerns in recent decades, we would therefore expect concerns about inequality to be voiced primarily by Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, not Republicans.

Yet last week, Jeb Bush gave a speech in Detroit titled “Restoring the Right to Rise in America” — the latest in a series of proposals and statements by top Republicans focusing on the rapid increase of income inequality in this country.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Democrats economic equality is take from the working class and give to the lazy.

Anonymous said...

10:25 right on and add all the while making the rich richer.

Jim said...

"Income equality" is Marxism in a plain brown wrapper.

The BIGGEST problem is Republicans/conservatives allowing the left to frame the argument by letting concepts like this go unchallenged time after time till they become accepted as assumed fact.

The "Diversity" argument is a prime example of this.
When has someone's sex or color EVER been a valid qualifying factor for hiring or promotion? It is called 'discrimination' in most circumstances, unless someone is playing the race or gender card.
Discrimination is against the law.

So how do you achieve 'income equality'?

Who says we should?

Anonymous said...

Right on the money, 2:51.

If they want income equality, they can do just like Joe did (multiple times)..

go out and work your butt off and stick to it till you succeed.

Then retire, marry the girl of your dreams, and start a blog... :-)