Former Congressman turned television host Joe Scarborough keeps telling people he's a conservative, but his comments on his MSNBC program continually refute this.
On Thursday's Morning Joe, Scarborough said, "The divide between rich and poor has nothing to do with free markets. It has to do with tax policies and business policies that have tilted the deck in favor of the very, very rich" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: At some point, Tom Brokaw, Republicans, conservatives, free market guys like myself are going to have to come to terms with the fact that over the past 25 years, the wealthy have become exponentially more wealthy and the poor have become exponentially more poor. The divide between rich and poor has nothing to do with free markets. It has to do with tax policies and business policies that have tilted the deck in favor of the very, very rich. I don’t say this as a populist. I’m not a populist. I say this like Alan Greenspan who said this presents a fundamental threat to American capitalism if we don’t right this wrong.
After witnessing this absurdity, I called MSNBC to get Scarborough's staff to forward me to his cellphone - which they have done in the past - but was told he wasn't going to be available until next week.
I wanted to ask him specifically how tax policy could be responsible for this growing wealth disparity when the share of the total taxes paid by the poor has continually declined in the past 30 years as the share the rich paid has increased.
We also know that approximately 50 percent of the nation's wage earners now don't pay one cent of federal income tax, a number that has steadily risen since the '50s when only 30 percent were exempt. Some at the bottom actually receive funds rather than contribute.
With these stats in mind, it is totally fallacious and frankly irresponsible to point fingers at tax policy for being the culprit.
What people in the media - and surprisingly a former Republican Congressman who claims to be a conservative - miss is that the real cause of the increasing wealth disparity in the past 30 years is indeed the free market, in particular the explosion in stock prices.
People seem to forget that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was as low as 750 in 1982 before the economy took off. It's been as high as 15,000 since and is now around 11,000.
This means stocks have appreciated by roughly six times the rate of inflation while real incomes - what average folks make after inflation - have largely remained flat.
As an analogy, If I'm on a track running six times as fast as you are, you shouldn't be at all surprised how many times I pass you in the course of an hour.
To drive the point home further, the three wealthiest Americans are Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison. They have all made their fortunes in stocks with Gates and Ellison doing it through investment specifically in their own companies.
Is their wealth due to tax policy or their own free market activities as well as the appreciation in the stocks they own? If we taxed them at a higher rate - even 100 percent! - exactly how would that make folks at the bottom rung of the ladder who don't pay federal income taxes make more money or have more assets?
This is not the case, and a former Republican Congressman should know better.
There are other free market components such as gains in commercial and residential real estate in the past three decades that have also disproportionately favored the wealthy again for what should be obvious reasons as has the explosion in commodity prices in the past ten years.
In case this isn't obvious, as the wealthy have a larger percentage of their assets in things that can appreciate in value, it's should be easy even for a caveman to understand why they've done so well since President Carter was thrown out of office.
At a time when a populist rage is building against the haves in this nation - sadly fueled by America's media - we really don't need so-called conservatives that have been fortunate enough to be given their own shows to fan this fire despite how many times they claim "I don’t say this as a populist. I’m not a populist."
But what should we expect from a guy who earlier this week said, "When I'm off the air, I have stopped trying to find news on TV networks other than ours?"
If Scarborough actually believes what's on MSNBC the 21 hours a day he's not qualifies as "news" it is extremely difficult to take anything he says seriously.
If he wants to debate me on his wealth disparity views versus mine or elaborate on how raising taxes on millionaires increases the income of those currently not paying taxes or gets them a better job he's got my number.
