On ABC News with host George Stephanopoulos, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had the audacity to insist yesterday that Democrats are the “top one percent” party, reported Raw Story.
Stephanopoulos was interviewing Cruz about the current economy and Hillary Clinton’s prospects of running for president in 2016. Stephanopoulos noted that there were one million new jobs added to the American labor market in the last three months.
“Look, if Hillary Clinton wants to run by telling Americans that the economy is doing great and that you can credit President Obama and Hillary Clinton for that, I would encourage her to follow that strategy,” said Cruz. “Because the simple reality is that’s true for the wealthy.”
“The top 1 percent under President Obama, the millionaires and billionaires that he constantly demagogues, earn a higher share of our income than any year since 1928. Those with power and influence, who walk the corridors of power of the Obama administration, have gotten fat and happy under big government.”
Sen. Cruz is attempting to hijack the liberal narrative of pointing out that the nation’s one percent are the ones who’ve been reaping the benefits of the economic recovery. We on the left have been saying that for years. The reason is not big government, and it’s not Obama.
In fact, the Dodd-Frank Act, passed during Obama’s term, was the first piece of major financial regulatory legislation enacted in decades. It was designed to control the high-risk derivatives market the contributed to the 2008 crisis and to protect American consumer tax dollars from funding another bailout. Ted Cruz wants to repeal Dodd-Frank and help the big banks.
The major attempts to rein in Wall Street and close the income gap have come from the Democrats. The Republicans do nothing but perpetuate the problem. With the 2016 elections on the minds of those in Capitol Hill, Cruz’s narrative is a new variation of an old tactic: appeal to Blue Collar America.
By making the GOP look like the party of the working man, he’s trying to appeal to blue-collar Americans who are still suffering from the 2008 economic collapse. He’s pushing the fact that wages have stagnated, a liberal talking point. The sad thing is that some people will pay attention to this drivel, believe it, and take it with them to the polls.
