MSNBC producers dutifully brought on DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on this morning's Jansing & Co. program to please their liberal viewers with the Democrat spin on last night's GOP debate. Yet host Chris Jansing didn't laugh or question when the well-to-do Wasserman Schultz claimed that she was a member of the middle class.
From the outset of the segment, Jansing had the audacity to ask the Congresswoman: “[W]hat one-word answer describes the Republican field?” Wasserman Schultz's predictable response: “extreme.” [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Such language is typical of the DNC Chairwoman, but Wasserman Schultz has the chutzpah to claim she is a member of the middle class with which Republicans are “out of touch.” Yet some simple online research clearly shows Schultz is anything but a middle-class American. First, with a congressional salary of $174,000 plus the numerous free perks that come with being both a congresswoman and head of the DNC such as taxpayer paid travel, immediately disqualify her middle-class claims. In fact, her Congressional salary is more than three times greater than the median salary for individuals in her own district (FL-20) which is $54,194.
Furthermore, for a woman who on a weekly basis demands that Mitt Romney release his financial statements, it is very troubling that since 2004, her husband, who is the Vice President of Commercial Lending at the Community Bank of Broward has his salary listed as N/A on Federal Financial Disclosure Statements required of all Members of Congress.
One wonders whether or not there is something in her financial statements that the Congresswoman is trying to hide besides the fact that she is not a middle-class American even in her own district.
Below is the relevant transcript:
Jansing and Co.
02/23/2012
10:05 a.m.
CHRIS JANSING: And I think the happy warrior Newt Gingrich showed up last night Terry and we saw it there. Let me bring in Debbie Wasserman Schultz the Florida Congresswoman who is also chair of the Democratic National Committee. So let me ask you first what one-word answer describes the Republican field?
CONGRESSWOMAN DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Extreme. And I think that extreme is what they demonstrated last night on immigration, on health care reform, on tax policy, and, and out of touch, although that's three words, but all three words apply because they didn't talk about the number one thing that Americans care about right now, and that's jobs. And getting the economy turned around. I mean, I just -- if I was a middle class American, which i am, sitting and watching that debate, I just had to be thinking out of touch. These guys don't understand what I'm going through.
