On the January 22 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck program, host Glenn Beck compared an economics professor who espoused tax cuts for lower-income Americans to former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Appearing on the program, Jeff Frankel, the James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, stated: “All of the past tax cuts have gone primarily to the rich, and I think it's - it is time to give some of it to lower-income, working Americans.” Beck replied: “Nice of you to join us, Stalin. I mean, that is the redistribution of wealth!”

As Media Matters for America has documented, this is not the first time Beck has invoked the Soviet Union in characterizing policies or people with whom he disagrees. On the January 9 edition of his show, Beck said of presidential candidate John Edwards, “I listened to him last night give a speech, and, I mean, why not just start wearing the Soviet star on your head and the Workers World Party?” Beck also previously asserted that "[p]olitical correctness has its roots in the old Soviet Union. ... [I]f someone was caught saying something that was out of line with Lenin's thinking, according to Trotsky, they'd be taken away for re-education until they were politically correct."

From the January 22 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

FRANKEL: Well, I agree with a lot of that. But first, any talk about giving tax cuts to people who don't pay taxes, there's -- we want to be very clear here. The tax cuts -- which have been truly massive, that have been passed over the last seven years -- have gone overwhelmingly to the rich, to some extent to the middle class, and not at all to lower-income, working Americans, including --

BECK: They don't pay taxes!

FRANKEL: I'm sorry, they do pay payroll taxes.

BECK: Payroll taxes. They're going to get that money back, supposedly --

PETER SCHIFF (author and Euro Pacific Capital president): Well, you know they're not.

BECK: -- through Social Security.

SCHIFF: They'll never see that money. We all know that.

BECK: I mean, jeez.

FRANKEL: We've -- people have properly focused on incentives in this country and we realize that incentives are important. If you're trying to lift yourself out of poverty and work yourself up into the middle class, we have a high marginal tax right now, including the payroll tax and including when you do move into paying income taxes.

All the past tax cuts have gone primarily to the rich, and I think it's -- it is time to give some of it to lower-income, working Americans.

BECK: Wow. Let me tell you, though --

FRANKEL: Both because they're going to spend it -- three reasons --

BECK: Nice of you to join us, Stalin. I mean, that is the redistribution of wealth!