Robin Hood in Reverse: State and Local Taxes Take the Most From Those Who Have Least
Thursday, 29 January 2015 09:33
Gordon writes: "Those who earn the least pay the most in nearly every state across America. Or rather, the poorest citizens pay the highest proportion of their incomes to local and state governments - twice as much in fact, as the top one percent."
(photo: Outside the Beltway)
Robin Hood in Reverse: State and Local Taxes Take the Most From Those Who Have Least
By Noah Gordon, The Atlantic
29 January 15
hose who earn the least pay the most in nearly every state across America. Or rather, the poorest citizens pay the highest proportion of their incomes to local and state governments—twice as much in fact, as the top one percent. And this regressive system, this inversion of the idea that taxes should be linked in part to a citizen’s ability to pay, tells us a lot about how we talk about fairness today.
Often when people say “taxes”, they mean the federal income tax. When Mitt Romney said that “47 percent” of people would vote for President Obama “no matter what,” he was referring to the 47 percent of Americans who paid no federal income taxes in 2011. Some of those people were retired, and most of the others paid payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security. But the federal income tax system is quite progressive, scaling from a 10 percent rate at the bottom to a nearly 40 percent rate in the top income bracket. Tax breaks like the Earned-Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit mean that lower-income Americans sometimes have a negative federal income tax bill—the IRS sends them a check. These progressive provisions in the federal tax code are crucial tools for cutting poverty and inequality.
But according to a new report from The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the impact of those federal tax breaks is largely offset by the burden of state and local taxes. Here’s how state and local taxes break down as a percentage of income: The richest Americans pay the least.
*Average for all states; excludes elderly residents. (Data: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)
The tax mix changes from state to state. In Washington State, the top one percent pay just one-seventh as much of their income as the poorest twenty percent, largely because the state does not levy a personal income tax. In Kansas, where Governor Sam Brownback’s tax cuts have left the state facing a budget shortfall, the top tax bracket starts at just $30,000 for married couples—so a CEO making six figures pays the same rate as a construction worker making five. Alabama taxes groceries, which absorbs a larger proportion of the household budgets of lower-income families than their richer neighbors. At the other end of the spectrum, Vermont charges low sales and excise taxes and offers a sizable earned-income tax credit for working families. Nevertheless, in every single state “at least some low- or middle-income groups pay more of their income in state and local taxes than wealthy families.” Some states like Texas and Florida have a reputation for being “low-tax.” That may be true for people like NBA player Trevor Ariza, who reportedly left the Washington Wizards for the Houston Rockets this summer in part to save millions on his income tax bill. Someone selling hamburgers at the Wizards’ arena, however, would end up paying a higher proportion of their income in taxes by moving to Texas. These numbers don’t even include the fines and fees that fund nearly half of some municipalities’ budgets—and come disproportionately out of poor peoples’ pockets.
Some of the most regressive aspects of the tax code are designed to advance broadly popular goals. The gas tax, for example, falls hardest on middle-class families, but it may promote environmentally friendly modes of transportation. Tobacco taxes discourage tobacco consumption. Many economists contend that lower rates for capital gains increases business investment, and that hiking the more progressive income taxes could make working less attractive. And in absolute terms, of course, the wealthy pay significantly more in taxes and receive less in direct government benefits than do the poor.
Yet combining America’s regressive state and local taxes with the progressive federal code reveals a system that barely asks more of its most comfortable citizens than of the middle-class. This is what overall effective tax rates looked like in 2014.
Data: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Tax Model; Citizens for Tax Justice
Addressing income inequality, long a priority of Democrats, is increasingly becoming a Republican talking point. What does this distribution mean for closing the “income gap”?
Well, most developed countries use their tax systems to diminish inequality, and the United States does too. Just less than most: Before taxes and transfers, the United States is the 10th most unequal of the 31 wealthy OECD countries; afterwards, it is fourth, behind just Chile, Mexico, and Turkey. Policymakers have discussed long-term solutions, like increasing educational attainment to counter the challenges posed by globalization and new technologies, and new regulations like a higher minimum wage. What the regressive state and local numbers show is that there is more room for the progressive federal system to compensate—perhaps by increasing the Earned-Income Tax Credit for low-income workers, and cutting the “carried-interest loophole” that benefits the better-off.
Federal taxes in America are progressive. State and local taxes are not. While the two systems are designed and administered separately, the same taxpayers pay both sets of bills, and their combined effect is only marginally progressive. Presidential hopefuls formulating policy fixes for inequality need to begin by recognizing that reality.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=5494"><span class="small">Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Wednesday, 28 January 2015 16:09
Weissman writes: "How did you respond when our crazy Libertarian uncle Ron Paul ran the article by Paul Craig Roberts alleging that a highly professional intelligence service had orchestrated the murderous attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo?"
Libertarian columnist Paul Craig Roberts claimed that Charlie Hebdo was orchestrated by a highly professional intelligence service. (photo: Bertrand Guay/AFP)
Conspiracy World: Welcome to M. Mouse Productions
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
28 January 15
ow did you respond when our crazy Libertarian uncle Ron Paul ran the article by Paul Craig Roberts alleging that a highly professional intelligence service had orchestrated the murderous attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo? Did you laugh out loud? Or did you cry, fearing that “the truthers” were taking over the world as we know it?
Don’t get me wrong. I love unravelling conspiracies, covert action operations, and CIA destabilization campaigns. Over the years, I’ve made a good part of my living exposing them on television, in print, and now online, most pointedly with “Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev” (Part I and Part II). But, doing the hard work to dig up the dirt and document who did what and to whom is a far cry from easily poking holes in official or mainstream media accounts and using that to assert “the truth.” Holes, loose ends, suspicious coincidences, and outright lies need to be contested. But they rarely reveal what really happened, no matter how many times would-be investigators repeat the phrase “false flag” or ask “cui bono,” to whose benefit?
“The Charlie Hebdo affair has many of the characteristics of a false flag operation,” Roberts wrote. “The attack on the cartoonists’ office was a disciplined professional attack of the kind associated with highly trained special forces; yet the suspects who were later corralled and killed seemed bumbling and unprofessional. It is like two different sets of people.”
Watching the over-heated accounts on television and the strange street videos of the killers shouting Allahu Akhbar, many people around the world probably shared the same impression, at least at first. But nothing in all of this gives Roberts license to engage in rank speculation, ideological conjecture, and what he calls “plausible inference” to conclude that real jihadists would never have staged such an attack, or that the CIA and its NATO and Mossad allies ran the operation because the French government was showing too much independence.
Roberts may be guessing right. He may be guessing wrong. But he is only guessing, and badly at that, ignoring evidence that suggests he got the story dead wrong. If, as he claims, the bumbling and unprofessional Kouachi brothers were simply “convenient patsies” for the real masked commandos, why did Chérif Kouachi take credit for the killings when the French television reporter Igor Sahiri called him at the print works where the brothers had holed up? This was on the morning before they committed “martyrdom by gendarme.”
“I just want to tell you that we are defenders of the Prophet,” he told the journalist. “I, Chérif Kouachi, was sent by al-Qaeda in Yemen. I was over there. I was financed by Imam Anwar al-Awlaki.” The Americans had killed the US-born Awlaki in September 2011 in a drone attack in Yemen. Why, if the Kouachi brothers were only “patsies,” did al-Qaeda in Yemen take credit for the killings? And why did Chérif’s friend Amedy Coulibaly, who called the same TV station to say that he was working for the Islamic State, support the brothers by taking hostages at the kosher supermarket?
Anyone can suck his thumb. But until Roberts looks at all the evidence and puts together a solid case for his half-baked theories, why take him or his claims seriously? Why join him in a Conspiracy World that is so patently Mickey Mouse? Is it because he plays to old wounds, rehashing long-simmering arguments about 9/11 and earlier CIA operations in Europe, such as Operation Gladio? However instructive these may or may not prove to be, they can add nothing tangible in the absence of specific evidence about the Charlie Hebdo killings.
None of this would matter if Roberts were a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Unfortunately, he is not. As a former Voodoo economist in the Reagan administration, he has become a widely quoted figure in a growing cottage industry that peddles unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, some from groups with their own political agenda.
“Who ordered the attack against Charlie Hebdo?” headlined Thierry Meyssan, founder and president of the Voltaire Network in France. It was ordered by the United States, he argues, and specifically “by the neo-conservatives and liberal hawks,” as part of their “clash of civilizations.” What, then, of the claims made by Chérif Kouachi or al-Qaeda in Yemen? Like Roberts, Meyssan simply ignores them, assuring us that “the mission of this commando had no connection with jihadist ideology.”
Facts have never been Meyssan’s strong suit. Author of the international best-seller L’Effoyable Imposture – in English, The Big Lie – he not only questioned official accounts of the 9/11 attacks, which many of us continue to do. But he also blamed the destruction of the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon on Washington insiders, military industrialists, and Mossad, while claiming that Osama bin Laden was a CIA fabrication who never stopped working for Washington. All this without the hard evidence to make his case. He also cozies up to Holocaust deniers and overt anti-Semites, making himself wildly popular in the Muslim world. And, in the present case, he has become an apologist for very real jihadis committing very nasty crimes.
In its first post-attack issue, Charlie Hebdo called Meyssan and his ilk “Scavengers of Conspiracy Theory.” Scavenger in French is charognard, or carrion-eater, which is also slang for bastard. The survivors of the Kouachi brothers take their murderous attack to heart, and have little patience with bastards like Meyssan covering up for the killers. Nor should the rest of us. If those who believe they know “the truth” can substantiate their conspiracy theories, more power to them. If all they can do is throw around allegations with little or no evidence, they should quit distracting well-meaning people from dealing with the real world. In other words, Messieurs Roberts and Meyssan, put up or shut up.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Torture if You Must, but Do Not Under Any Circumstances Call The New York Times
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=29754"><span class="small">Dan Froomkin, The Intercept</span></a>
Wednesday, 28 January 2015 16:05
Froomkin writes: "Monday's guilty verdict in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on espionage charges - for talking to a newspaper reporter - is the latest milepost on the dark and dismal path Barack Obama has travelled since his inaugural promises to usher in a 'new era of openness.'"
Jeffrey Sterling, second from left, leaving Alexandria Federal Courthouse. (photo: Kevin Wolf/AP)
Torture if You Must, but Do Not Under Any Circumstances Call The New York Times
By Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
28 January 15
onday’s guilty verdict in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on espionage charges — for talking to a newspaper reporter — is the latest milepost on the dark and dismal path Barack Obama has traveled since his inaugural promises to usher in a “new era of openness.”
Far from rejecting the authoritarian bent of his presidential predecessor, Obama has simply adjusted it, adding his own personal touches, most notably an enthusiasm for criminally prosecuting the kinds of leaks that are essential to a free press.
The Sterling case – especially in light of Obama’s complicity in the cover-up of torture during the Bush administration – sends a clear message to people in government service: You won’t get in trouble as long as you do what you’re told (even torture people). But if you talk to a reporter and tell him something we want kept secret, we will spare no effort to destroy you.
There’s really no sign any more of the former community organizer who joyously declared on his first full day in office that “there’s been too much secrecy in this city… Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.”
Instead, as author Scott Horton explained to me a few weeks ago, Obama’s thinking on these issues was swayed by John Brennan, the former senior adviser he eventually named CIA director. And for Brennan and his ilk, secrecy is a core value — partly for legitimate national security reasons and partly as an impregnable shield against embarrassment and accountability.
The Sterling case was until recently an even more direct attack on a free press, as Obama administration prosecutors repeatedly demanded testimony from New York Times reporter James Risen, who wrote about the botched plot against the Iranian government that they charged Sterling with divulging.
Risen’s testimony was crucial to their case, they said – although evidently it wasn’t. And their argument was that U.S. law recognizes no such thing as reporter’s privilege when a journalist received what the government considers an illegal leak.
Attorney General Eric Holder finally retreated from that particular attack on press freedom earlier this month, as my colleague Lynn Oberlander explained. Holder also announced revisions of DOJ policy on questioning journalists or obtaining information from media organizations about their sources. But as Oberlander put it, “the policy still leaves a fair amount of leeway for national security investigations — some of the most important reporting often based on confidential sources.”
Meanwhile, former CIA officer John Kiriakou is in prison, serving the last days of his over two-year sentence not for torturing anyone, but for revealing information on torture to a reporter.
Stephen Kim, a former State Department official who pled guilty to leaking classified information to a Fox News reporter, faces 13 months in prison.
And Thomas Drake, a former NSA official who provided classified information about mismanagement at his agency to a Baltimore Sun reporter, endured a four-year persecution by the government that the federal judge in his case called “unconscionable,” before prosecutors dropped all 10 felony charges and settled for a single guilty plea on a misdemeanor. The government’s message nevertheless was loud and clear. As secrecy expert Steven Aftergood told me: “In every significant sense, the government won, because it demonstrated the price of nonconformity.”
All of this has been happening during a two-decade-long shift in the cultural norms of the U.S. government, whereby reporters are now routinely blocked from communicating with staff unless they are tracked and/or monitored by public relations controllers.
And government officials are being told very clearly that their personal right to free speech does not extend to their work life, nowhere more clearly than in the intelligence community, where a new directive forbids employees from discussing “intelligence-related information” with a reporter unless they have specific authorization to do so, even if it’s unclassified.
Not surprisingly, the Obama administration has fared poorly on transparency scorecards and has failed to follow the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
By contrast, neither Obama nor Holder ever seriously contemplated any kind of prosecution or accountability for the application of torture – a heinous assault on human rights – that was rampant during the Bush era. Holder repeatedly and effusively ruled out any possible prosecution of those who followed orders they were told were legal. And Obama made it clear that he would not second-guess the people who gave the orders – a prima facie case of what my colleague Glenn Greenwald calls elite immunity.
Looking ahead to 2016, the prospects are grim. None of the major candidates for president have said anything half as powerful about openness, transparency and accountability as Obama did. And look where that got us.
FOCUS | We Don't Need Another Bush, Mitt, or Trump
Wednesday, 28 January 2015 12:34
Galindez writes: "It's official: America doesn't need Mitt or another Bush again. Donald Trump said so this weekend in Iowa.
Donald Trump. (photo: Paul Morigi/Getty)
We Don't Need Another Bush, Mitt, or Trump
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
28 January 15
onald Trump
It’s official: America doesn’t need Mitt or another Bush again. Donald Trump said so this weekend in Iowa. The Donald said Romney had had his chance and failed. He went on to say that Romney is one of those people who gets to the finish line and can’t close the deal. As for Jeb Bush, he favors Common Core and amnesty, and his brother was a disaster for America. While I agree we can’t afford Romney or another Bush, we can’t afford a Trump either.
Donald was clearly throwing his hat in the ring on Saturday at the Iowa Freedom Summit. I must admit I agreed with him more than the score of religious fanatics he shared the stage with. He did talk about rebuilding America’s infrastructure. He did say we don’t need another Bush. But he also tried to convince the crowd that he was the Messiah who could fix America, closing by saying he was “seriously” considering a run for president of the United States. God save us. Wait – that’s what all the candidates said.
Except for his exaggerated bashing of Obamacare, and his exaggerated ego, The Donald was one of the few who sounded sane during this day of right-wing posturing for 2016. We all know that it was just a show – this is the same Donald who still doesn’t think Obama was born in the United States. If someone can be duped by conspiracy theories like Donald Trump is, how can we trust him to lead our country?
The rest of the options were no better:
Rick Perry
Same old stuffed suit who will drown the deficit and immigrants with oil. Oil is the solution to all that ails America, according to Rick Perry. Perry’s speech was briefly interrupted by immigration activists.
Some 15 minutes into Perry’s speech, a half-dozen protesters jumped up in the balcony holding signs that read “Deportable?” That’s the term used by summit co-host Rep. Steve King to criticize Obama for bringing an undocumented immigrant from Dallas, 21-year-old Ana Zamora, to the State of the Union address to represent “Dreamers” – students brought to the country as children. Other Dreamers managed to make it into the theater where Iowa conservatives gathered to hear from two dozen leading conservatives, including more than a half-dozen 2016 contenders. Perry declared, as he has in the past, over and over, that if Washington won’t close the border, Texas will. Perry parroted the same solutions for what’s wrong in America as most of the others: approve the Keystone pipeline, close the border, repeal Obamacare, and kill the islamofascists.
Chris Christie
Chris Christie was also interrupted by an immigration protester. He was the only candidate who wasn’t reading from the same script. Unlike most Republicans seeking the support of Iowa evangelicals, he gave a speech that wasn’t a sermon. He was introducing who he is and what he believes, without offering solutions. It was a lofty speech when it came to his goals, but it lacked solutions. It was a polished stump speech that was tailored to appeal to more than the radical right-wingers in the room. He was attempting to introduce himself as a classic conservative who is not rigid. He said if you want to find a candidate you agree with on every issue, then you should just go home and look in the mirror. He is a threat. None of the other would-be candidates who spoke at the Iowa Freedom Summit have a chance to do well in blue states. Think about what losing New Jersey would do to the electoral map for the Democrats. The uphill climb for Christie will be to get the Tea Party and other right-wing radicals to forgive him for working with Obama after Hurricane Sandy. If he overcomes that hurdle, he will not be easy to beat in November 2016.
Mike Huckabee
When Huckabee took the stage I thought, here comes another sermon. We need to kill more pigs? If we don’t kill pigs we won’t get sausage? What was he talking about? Huckabee reminded me of Grandpa speaking at the American Legion Hall. Once again, it was the Islamic jihadists who are causing all of our problems. Hmmm, a maximum wage instead of a minimum wage – I support that. Let’s say a $250,000-a-year maximum wage. But his maximum wage thing was just rhetoric. He was cleverly using it to bash the minimum wage. He doesn’t understand that we are no longer asking for a minimum wage, we’re asking for a living wage.
While it was a patriotic speech, it was not a sermon. Mike Huckabee seemed to be trying to distance himself from his past as a preacher. He was the last to speak, and proceeded to sign his new book, “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy,” in which he gives his opinion on the cultural divide. He prefers “Bubbaville” to Washington DC. Let’s hope the American people don’t house him at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Carly Fiorina
The Washington Times called Fiorina the big winner at the summit. They quoted a former party chair from Oklahoma, and offered no other proof, because there was none. Her speech was a total snooze, one tone throughout. Her highlight line was based on fantasy.
“Like Hillary Clinton, I too have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe,” Fiorina told the crowd. “But unlike her, I have actually accomplished something. Mrs. Clinton, flying is an activity, not an accomplishment.”
Just what did she accomplish? She was a failure as CEO at Hewlett Packard. They paid her $40 million to go away. She rarely is mentioned in any polls. She is hiring staff and trying to convince people that there is a constituency clamoring for her to run.
Scott Walker
He is running on what he did in Wisconsin. His speech went over well in front of this crowd. He spent most of it talking about how he took on the unions and the liberals in Madison and will do it in Washington. He is a contender for the GOP nomination, but a dream opponent for the Democrats. Who better to unite the left than the Koch brothers’ puppet governor? He stuck to his record as governor and didn’t go down the islamofascist route. Out of all the speakers who spoke on Saturday, I would say Walker and Christie were the only serious candidates. The rest were contenders to win Iowa only to sink in New Hampshire.
Dr. Ben Carson
I’m going to say it: Carson is the token black that the GOP can point to and say they love him, but when it comes to sealing the deal they will vote for someone else. He reminded me of a slick motivational speaker. He should definitely buy 30 minute – not 30 second – spots. His volunteers can be a fake audience cheering at everything he says. He will poll well, but when it becomes time to vote, the GOP will remember that he is not one of them.
Rick Santorum
Yawn ... Same campaign as four years ago. He even talked about the origin of the sweater vest. He will save America by ending abortion, closing the borders, repealing Obamacare, and killing the islamofascists. It works in Iowa, but won’t travel.
Ted Cruz
Those who came to hear a sermon were not disappointed when Ted Cruz launched into his “Miracle of America” stump speech. Cruz promised the crowd that even though times are tough in America, a “miracle” could be on the horizon. He delivered a speech full of conservative objectives – “repeal Obamacare” and “abolish the IRS.” He suggested taking the 110,000 current employees of the IRS and sending them to guard the southern border. “Somewhat jokingly,” he said of the plan. (The side benefit would be, he laughed, that the agents would scare away would-be illegal immigrants.) Most notably, Cruz positioned himself to the right of all his potential rivals. He warned the audience that all of the Republican contenders would fashion themselves as true conservatives when they are not. “Talk is cheap,” he said of his fellow Republicans. He then drew from the Bible – as he did throughout the speech – saying, “The Word tells us, ‘You will know them by their fruit.’” It was red meat for the Tea Party faithful in the crowd, but as with most of the GOP field, there is no prayer for him to win in November 2016.
There were many other speakers that day, like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Marsha Blackburn, Jim Gilmore, and Mike Lee. The scariest moment for me was when Steve King said there were ten presidential hopefuls there. I counted nine. Did that mean Newt, or Sarah, or maybe even Marsha Blackburn is going to run? If so, maybe we should send a shrink to cover the Republican caucus in Iowa.
Scott Galindez co-founded Truthout and will be reporting on the presidential election from Iowa throughout 2015.
FOCUS | The Kochs' $889 Million Pledge to Buy the Presidency Could Undo Education Cuts in 4 States
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7118"><span class="small">Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Wednesday, 28 January 2015 11:02
Gibson writes: "At their recent top-secret retreat in Rancho Mirage, California, with right-wing politicians and billionaire oligarchs, Charles and David Koch pledged to spend $889 million on buying the 2016 presidential election."
Billionaires Charles and David Koch. (photo: Koch Brothers Exposed)
The Kochs' $889 MILLION Pledge to Buy the Presidency Could Undo Education Cuts in 4 States
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
28 January 15
t their recent top-secret retreat in Rancho Mirage, California, with right-wing politicians and billionaire oligarchs, Charles and David Koch pledged to spend $889 million to buy the 2016 presidential election. That’s a ton of money that could be used for a number of more beneficial things that would provide legitimate good to society. But before we break down exactly how that $889 million could be used, it’s critical for the average American worker to grasp how insignificant $889 million is for people like the Koch Brothers.
$889 million is more than double what the entire Republican National Committee spent in 2012. According to Forbes, the two brothers’ combined net worth is around $83 billion. So while $889 million seems like a lot, it’s actually just 1.07 percent of the two brothers’ combined net worth. Since the average American's median net worth is $45,000, 1.07 percent of the net worth of an average household with two working parents would be $963. By 2013 standards, that’s about the amount of money a family four would need to budget for a month of groceries.
Since the Kochs have $889 million to blow on buying an election, I’ve made a few suggestions as to how that money could be spent a little more effectively:
1. Fully Funding Louisiana’s Colleges and Universities for the Next Year ($350 to $400 million)
In revenue-starved Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal has warned that colleges and universities may see a $300 million reduction in funding for fiscal year 2015. And in oil-dependent Louisiana, the consistent drop of oil prices means that the state’s public higher education programs may suffer an additional $50 million to $100 million in budget cuts. Just under half of the money Charles and David Koch have pledged to buy the 2016 election could reverse those budget cuts.
2. Fully Funding the University of Wisconsin for Two Years ($300 million)
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker just proposed a 13 percent cut to the University of Wisconsin system over the next two years, which school officials have said will be a “significant challenge.” Since Walker is one of the Koch Brothers’ favorites (the prank call the Buffalo Beast made to Walker’s office in 2011 pretending to be David Koch is priceless), I’m sure they wouldn’t mind filling the budget gap for the University of Wisconsin system for the next two years.
3. Funding Arizona’s Public Universities for a Year ($75 Million)
Arizona’s new governor, Doug Ducey, just proposed a 10 percent cut to Arizona’s three public colleges – the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University. The $75 million cut would be distributed by slashing ASU’s funding by $40 million, cutting $22 million from UA, and reducing NAU’s budget by $13 million. While University administrators say they refuse to raise tuition “no matter what,” these cuts may still affect class sizes, program quality, and class availability for the 142,000+ students attending those three schools. $75 million to the Koch Brothers is equivalent to the cost of an oil change for the rest of us. They should have no problem reversing these cuts.
4. Paying for Kansas’ K-12 Public Education for One Year ($127.4 Million)
In the Koch Brothers’ home state of Kansas, Governor Sam Brownback is proposing a $127.4 million cut to the state’s public K-12 schools between this year and the next. Kansas’ budget is in a particularly desperate situation as a result of Brownback’s disastrous tax cut package that mainly benefits wealthy families and big businesses. If the tax cuts continue uninterrupted, Kansas will have lost $5 billion in revenue by 2018. The tax cuts are a money drain on their own, but if the Kochs care about the quality of education for children in their home state, the least they could do is kick over $127.4 million and help keep the heat off of Brownback for a year.
These four examples are all in states with Republican legislatures and governors, and the Kochs have made a point of spending astronomical sums of money to bolster Republicans. The $889 million they’ve pledged to help make a Republican the next president could instead improve education for students in four different states. As an added bonus, Republicans in those states would reap political rewards for keeping their schools and universities off the chopping block. Of course, this money would likely come with strings attached, as it has with the Kochs’ past educational philanthropy – like recipients having to agree to force curriculum down students’ throats teaching that rich people deserve to have all the money.
But what nobody is asking is why two men approaching 80-years-old are committing absurd amounts of money to influence political outcomes and educational curriculum when they may not even be alive to see the results. It hints at a deeper, darker philosophical motivation – the Kochs clearly believe that wealthy oligarchs like them should not only be in control of their own vastly profitable businesses, but have government officials be subservient to them, and have a say in what schools teach students.
Such a philosophy is profoundly unhealthy, and all the more reason that nobody should be able to wield so much power over a nation’s politics. Our democratic systems will always be compromised until we can successfully amend our Constitution to say that corporations aren’t people, and that money is not speech.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at
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, and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
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hose who earn the least pay the most in nearly every state across America. Or rather, the poorest citizens pay the highest proportion of their incomes to local and state governments—twice as much in fact, as the top one percent. And this regressive system, this inversion of the idea that taxes should be linked in part to a citizen’s ability to pay, tells us a lot about how we talk about fairness today.
ow did you respond when our crazy Libertarian uncle Ron Paul ran the article by Paul Craig Roberts alleging that a highly professional intelligence service had orchestrated the murderous attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo? Did you laugh out loud? Or did you cry, fearing that “the truthers” were taking over the world as we know it?
onday’s 
onald Trump
t their recent top-secret retreat in Rancho Mirage, California, with right-wing politicians and billionaire oligarchs, Charles and David Koch pledged to spend 
