On Monday's MSNBC Live, host Stephanie Ruhle -- also a business correspondent for NBC -- was inserting a left-leaning view of economics into the discussion of the Republican tax cut plan as she proclaimed that "income inequality is the biggest issue that plagues this nation -- one of the biggest issues."

Right-leaning MSNBC contributor Bret Stephens had a mixed view of the plan as liberal contributor Eddie Claude of Princeton University twice derided it as "highway robbery on the part of the top one percent."

After Stephens -- also a New York Times columnist -- ended his commentary by recalling that, according to "nonpartisan tax committees," the tax cuts would be "stimulative" for at least a few years and help Republicans politically, host Ruhle shot back:

But does it? They have supercharged the economy -- the economy that was already doing well -- and the portion of the economy that has been -- that has benefited since President Trump won, and that benefit from this plan are the rich. And income inequality is the biggest issue that plagues this nation -- one of the biggest issues.

After Stephens argued that it would lead to "repatriating" of capital back into the U.S., but worried that it might lead to bad investment decisions like the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, Gaude jumped in to liken the tax cut plan to a "sugar high" that would have consequences later. Here's Gaude:

It's going to be super-charged, but its going to be a sugar high, right? And you know what happens when our kids are on sugar highs, right? There's a kind of crash that happens, and eventually it harms them in so many different sorts of ways.

He soon complained:

They should actually be very clear about what this tax bill is all about. It is basically highway robbery on the part of the top one percent in terms of the national coffers.

Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Monday, December 18, MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle: