CNN’s Rampell: Dems Decided that the Only Way to Help the Needy Is To Give Some Money to the Rich

EXCERPT:

RAMPELL: "What I mean is, Democrats seem to have decided that the only way to help the needy, the only way to help the poor and the middle class is also to give some money to the rich, which is a sort of flipside of some of the arguments that you’ve heard from Republicans over the years, that the only way to help the poor is to give tax cuts to the rich. In this case the argument from the progressive left is, well, the only way we can help people who are struggling with student debt is to also give forgiveness to households making $250,000 a year, which is what this plan does. Now, it may not be that those people get the majority of the benefits, but they will get money. I mean, that is money that could be used for other purposes. That is money that could be used on the child tax credit or a million other things that progressives normally claim to care more about. I find it a little bit frustrating that the progressive left has insisted on — in a number of their ways of thinking about remaking government has insisted on the only way to help those who are needy is also by giving away benefits to the upper middle class. Sometimes the argument is a political one, like, 'Well, the only way we can get by it is if rich people benefit, too.' I think in this case it’s basically that the demographics of the Democratic Party have shifted and it is increasingly a highly educated, higher-income party, and so they feel like they have to give away some goodies essentially to, you know, the investment banker who recently, you know — the future investment banker who just got their MBA is going to get debt relief from this, for example, someone who might be a plastic surgery resident today who might have a moderate income, who is going to make $400,000 next year. They’re going to get some of their debt wiped out.”