Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus’ fear mongering about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “socialism” in the U.S. was too much even for Fox News host Neil Cavuto.
After discussing the crisis in Venezuela, Marcus hinted that the same thing could happen here, thanks to Ocasio-Cortez and her Democratic colleagues. “We have a group of people in Washington today, new representatives especially, that look to socialism as the way to go, and if you don’t think that’s dangerous, Neil, I do,” he said.
Cavuto noted that Marcus was referring to Ocasio-Cortez’ desire to tax the wealthiest at 70% and that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is “leading that charge.” Cavuto said, “It does seem to be a common theme among prominent Democrats. That worries you.”
“It comes right out of the universities,” Marcus said. “They did a survey of it. Almost 50% of students coming out of universities today believe that socialism is the answer. That’s frightening to me.” Marcus, an 89 year-old billionaire, did not note that, as of last year, 70 percent of college graduates have significant college-loan debt and that the average is $37,172, a $20,000 increase from 13 years ago. That kind of debt could make a bigger impact on a young person’s outlook than anything a college professor teaches.
Marcus continued with another out-of-touch statement, that the U.S. has “the best medical care in the world, the best housing in the world, that’s why people want to come here.” In fact, The Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. health care system as “the worst among the 11 developed nations it analyzed. In home ownership, we rank 21st among advanced economies.
Marcus further claimed that people who don’t watch Fox or read The Wall Street Journal don’t understand that we’re “on the brink of a disaster.”
Finally, Cavuto pushed back. He noted that there was a time in the U.S. when we had such higher rates “and we did OK.” He pointed out that Home Depot was founded during such a time. “They might come back and listen to you and say, ‘Well he did just fine under that system,’” Cavuto said. He later added, “They [will] come back and say ‘We didn’t have this vast chasm, the divide between the rich and poor back then, and that’s when rates were much higher.’ You say?”
“They have no clue at what history has shown because if they look at history, they’ll see it doesn’t work,” Marcus insisted. “We have the best prosperity in the world, we have the lowest unemployment in the world. … Why would you want to change that?”
Still refusing to acknowledge that the system is not working for a lot of working Americans, the billionaire Marcus sneered about Warren, Ocasio-Cortez, et al, “What do you do? Take dumb pills every morning? I mean, that’s probably what they do.”
Reality check: Five top economists support Ocasio-Cortez’s plan.
See just how out-of-touch a billionaire can be below, from the January 25, 2019 Your World.