Why we have a progressive income tax

June 7, 2016 at 1:51 pm

Pictures are a really powerful way to tell a story. If you can find an easy way to explain something through pictures, you can often make great strides in a very short period of time.

One of the things that often gets brought up in conversations with conservatives is this idea of a flat tax. Many conservatives think this is somehow “fair.”

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Here’s a simple drawing to illustrate why we have a progressive tax and to show how the flat tax is really just a loophole for the wealthy.

Distribute it right to begin with

June 26, 2015 at 10:26 pm

Corporate special interest groups have hit upon a very powerful framing of the economy and government that involves something they call “redistribution”.

It has been played over and over in the media more than any annoying pop ballad I can remember. So much so in fact that I bet you could describe the framing w/o me saying a word.

It looks like this:

You earn your money. It is yours. Then the government takes it away in the form of taxes (often referred to as theft) and gives it to someone who hasn’t earned it (redistribution).

When people you know say “socialism,” it is this process of taking from the “deserving” to give to the “undeserving” they are talking about.

I state this argument as strongly as possible here because this is what we’re up against. Professional, audience-tested propaganda.

If we, when you are talking to people, fall into arguing the side that wants to “redistribute,” you will be seen as someone who wants to use government to take away and give to the “lazy” or “undeserving”.

There is an easy way to flip this framing and talk about the actual situation with people you never thought you could reach.

All you have to do is talk about distributing it right to begin with.

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Father John Cahill: “We are not going to provide you with cheap labor”

June 6, 2015 at 1:03 pm

I think this might be the quote of the week by Father John Cahill, former director of Justice and Peace for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington, Kentucky.

Father Cahill writes:

It is time to tell corporations that taxpayers have had enough. We are not going to provide you with cheap labor out of our wallets while you receive favored tax rates on capital gains, reinvested dividends, accelerated depreciation, tax abatements etc. etc. and severely underpay your workers.

Father Cahill recognizes that in our one-sided pursuit of profits, we seem to have lost sight of why we were pursuing profits to begin with.

We’ve lost sight of our values. We’ve lost sight of why we allowed corporations to begin with: for the public good.

He contrasts this with today’s insanity of subsidizing multinational corporations while many of these same multinationals fight to pay people less and less.

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2 Years After Occupy Cincinnati, Enquirer Puts Income Inequality on Front Page

January 31, 2014 at 2:54 pm

Still think that Occupy Cincinnati didn’t have an impact?

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