came together to protect black people from violence, to assure access to the ballot box and to build economic opportunity. or to say it another way, black lives matter. black citizens matter and black families matter. [ applause ] two very different approaches on the issue of equal opportunity and the role of government. one that is sure to be an ongoing story line in the 2016 race for the white house. at the table, david k. johnson, professor at syracuse university law, author of divided. perry bacon jr., nbc news political reporter. christina greer, author of black ethic niiethicics. and katon dalton, former south carolina gop chair. welcome back, panel. christina, i want to start with you. i thought elizabeth war ren s
63% said yes. and when asked if the government should redistribute wealth by heavily taxing the rich, 52% agrees with that. there seems to be political will for wealth distribution. the question, is there a political way for this? it s difficult, as katon said, in an election. no one wants to say explicitly the ways they will do it, right? oftentimes it will be raising taxes. or let s be clear, democrats benefit from big money in ways that republicans do as well. and so to say, i will tax super rich people, is very difficult. i think the intent is stronger in the democrats. but the implementation in many ways can look similar. it can look similar in sort of the implementation phase once we get to the presidency and how he can or cannot work with congress. the public is very clear on this. the public believes there should
in the right direction. we also got to get rid of mandatories entirely. all right. to be continued. of course, never enough time. i want to thank christina greer and katon dalton. forget the bills, forget the politicians. the men taking criminal justice reform into their own hands.
wealth. i want us to build private wealth. you can t do it by stripping away the foundation. katon, how do we balance the need to create jobs, the need to create an economic environment that encourages robust business growth and investment with the collective good of growing the economy so everyone benefits? because clearly everyone has not been benefiting from this recovery. you see it in the numbers that everyone is not benefiting. that s probably what this eelectric is goi election is going to be about. people who are looking for opportunities. who are looking for policies. not that the voter looks that deep into the policy basket. the inequities are there. i agree with you. there s nothing wrong with people opening businesses, hiring people and creating wealth. i mean, there s nothing wrong with that. that creates jobs. and sometimes i think that gets mixed up into all the misnomers about the wealth gap, the inequities in the middle class. i think we have to have something, a s
you saw people who said, you know, people deserve a second chance. that s what this is about. so i think it s a little bit about the presidential election. people also would like to see washington do some things. this is a thing i think will not hurt republicans. the crime bills of the 80s and 90s, everybody s three strikes, turned out to be very expensive. so i think it started with texas and other states. it started with drug courts giving people the second chance. i think it shows there s a piece of humanity in washington. i hope you see with the leadership change this is something they can all get together and do. the american public would like to see the republicans and democrats in general. the ones who matter in the next election would like to see something like this happen and it makes sense. christina, katon just mentioned this is a shift, also for democrats. there s a bipartisan consensus in the 90s in the crime bills. how do we understand the shift?