Likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made headlines she did not want last week when she told a Massachusetts rally it is not corporations and businesses that create jobs.
Part of a broader critique of trickle-down economics, comments meant to appeal to the left wing of the Democratic Party drew scorn and ridicule, with one liberal columnist even calling them "a stupid thing" to say on the campaign trail. In the grand tradition of having just said something ridiculous, Clinton clarified those remarks this week.
But Clinton joined a tradition among Democratic powerhouse figures to make economically illiterate statements disguised as populist appeals to the base. President Obama infamously said, "You didn't build that" in 2012 to remind enterprising capitalists they would be lost without the help of the government. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) made a landmark speech in someone's house, where she said no one in this country ever got rich on their own and revealed that taxpayer money goes toward building roads.
Obama and Biden have stated it is "patriotic" for wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes. In 2008, Obama, despite Charlie Gibson's reminder that higher capital gains taxes have historically garnered smaller revenues, said he would raise them anyway in the name of "fairness" and told a crowd that "when you spread the wealth around" it's "good for everybody."
That kind of language might appeal to at least one late South American political figure.