Yesterday on ABC’s “This Week,” President Barack Obama blamed rising income inequality in the United States on increased globalization and greater use of technology by U.S. companies. He said the federal government can push against these trends by — you guessed it — spending more:
So there’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s happening in the marketplace. But if we have policies that make sure that our kids are prepared for higher skilled jobs, if we have policies that make sure that we’re rebuilding our infrastructure — because a robot can’t build a road — and we need, you know, new ports and a smarter electricity grid, if we’re making investments to make sure that research and development continues to happen here, if we have tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the United States as opposed to overseas, all those things can make the situation better.
It doesn’t solve the problem entirely, but it pushes against these trends. And the problem that we’ve got right now is you’ve got a portion of Congress who — whose policies don’t just want to, you know, leave things alone, they actually want to accelerate these trends. There’s no serious economist out there that would suggest that, if you took the Republican agenda of slashing education further, slashing Medicare further, slashing research and development further, slashing investments in infrastructure further, that that would reverse some of these trends of inequality.
Recommended
More federal spending on Medicare and R&D is the way to reduce income inequality? Really?
Mickey Kaus, who blogs for the Daily Caller, calls B.S.:
O's remedies for inequality (educ., infrastructure) laughably inadequate to counter trade & tech trends he cites http://t.co/wJbwbcKG4E
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) September 15, 2013
If Obama were really concerned about improving the incomes of low-skilled U.S. workers, he wouldn’t be pushing an amnesty bill that will put downward pressure on their wages for years to come.
That's before you consider that O's immigration bill wld make inequality *worse*, as even CBO suggests-eg lower wages http://t.co/nnN3D8J66N
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) September 15, 2013
Related:
Join the conversation as a VIP Member