Emphasizing that all but one of the top 30 income earners in the United States are white males, Mika Brzezinski clamored that it is time for the wealthy to pay their fair share and help solve the budget crisis on Monday's "Morning Joe."
Co-host Joe Scarborough and liberal New York Times columnist Charles Blow were in the midst of a debate about cutting entitlement spending when Mika chimed in. After Scarborough argued that making cuts to middle-class entitlements is necessary for the country's fiscal health, Brzezinski quipped that the rich should be contributing more to solve the budget deficit.
"I just don't see why with top earners doing better than ever, why they can't be a part of this equation," she complained. She referenced a list in Sunday's New York Times of the top 30 earners in the U.S., a list that included "some of the people who drove us into the ditch."
"All white men, by the way, just one woman," Brzezinski said of the list, "and I didn't see any African-Americans." This is from the same pundit who argued that the financial crisis would have been averted had more women been in charge.
"We need to balance things out," she said, echoing a tired liberal argument, or the country will have "class warfare on its worst level."
A transcript of the segment, which aired on April 11 at 8:14 a.m. EDT, is as follows:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let me say this very clearly – it is middle-class entitlements that are going to bankrupt this country if we don't slow it down. Why? Because of course, nobody wants to stand up and do what's responsible to middle class entitlements, because elderly middle-class Americans vote in massive proportions.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I just don't see why with top earners doing better than ever, why they can't be a part of this equation. I'm sorry, it would just be a lot easier to swallow. And if you looked at the New York Times yesterday, and you saw the top 30 earners, and how much money they are making all over again, including some of the people who drove us into the ditch – all white men, by the way, just one woman – and I didn't see any African-Americans – I think we have a problem that we need to address as a society.
Sorry, and I agree with everything you have to say --
SCARBOROUGH: White men?
BRZEZINSKI: But we need to balance things out. (Crosstalk) And you're going to have class warfare on its worst level.
MIKE BARNICLE: Is that not – is that not perhaps the biggest political mistake that Barack Obama has made thus far –
BRZEZINSKI: Yes. That's correct.
BARNICLE: – not planting the flag on the $250,000-and-up tax cut –
BRZEZINSKI: I completely agree.
BARNICLE: – and saying "No."
