Heather McGhee, president of the public policy organization Demos, linked the Republican tax reform bill to "the patriarchy" during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday.
"How do we get us to this conversation about patriarchy and its benefits so that we can move beyond the individual cases to this broader systemic question?" asked fellow "Morning Joe" guest Eddie Glaude Jr., a professor at Princeton University.
"Good question. I think that we have a problem in this country, and I actually see it expressed as well in the Republican tax plan—this idea of a hierarchy of human value that some people are simply worth more than other people" McGhee said.
McGhee added that the proposed GOP tax bill would benefit wealthy Americans over those in the working class.
"And you see that with a tax bill that says that corporations who have record profits right now," McGhee said. "Wealthy people who are richer than they've ever been deserve more of our country's treasure than working-class people who are struggling, the majority of whom are women and predominantly people of color. And so in some ways what you're talking about in terms of the patriarchy is really a deeper question of whose life matters, who is valued in this country, and for too long it's been a very, very narrow set of people."
McGhee did not offer any specifics or numbers from the tax bill to back up her claim.
A recent analysis from the Tax Foundation found that the Senate's tax reform plan would give the biggest tax cuts to those with moderate incomes and those with children.
McGhee went on to say that the entire country would benefit if people had a "more expansive view of the human capacity."
"I think that the entire country would benefit if we had a more expansive view of the human capacity in all of us, not just the people who have historically been at the top and who held the vast majority of America's wealth," McGhee said.