A first step would be to insist on equal educational opportunity for every kid. I literally think it ought to be a constitutional amendment. Every kid deserves a chance. That seems pretty American to me.
If we were able to do that, to make sure that every kid has the chance to learn how to create societal value--then over the next 30 to 40 years Black and Hispanic family incomes would rise to the level of White family income and a whole host of problems like the deficit and crime would disappear.
For about 10 years I was involved in an organization that used a model resembling that of LeBron James' "I Promise" school. It absolutely worked--we (and I say we guardedly because my contributions were minimal) got lots of kids to and through college. Kids who would have never made it otherwise. If we could make programs like these available to underprivileged kids we'd be a long way toward solving the problem. We could totally make that happen without raising taxes. We would just need to eliminate the current method of school district funding and equalize the educational funding for all kids.
Of course a very large percentage of the people on the other side of the political spectrum deeply do not want to solve this problem. They say they do but they really don't. What they really want to do is keep elite White male minority rule in place. We would have to call them on their bullshit, we would have to defeat their deflections (charter schools and the like). But it's doable.
We know how to do this. We know what works. In my mind, insisting on this is our only way out of this mess.
Amen. Absolutely. And good on you for this suggestion. CT tried to change the way we find school districts — a judge wrote a beautiful blueprint for that — and got shut down. The work continues. A child’s future should not be dictated by ZIP code.
The year I was born, the 200,001st dollar and above of wages were taxed at 91%. We'll never see that again, but the insanely wealthy, like Bezos and Musk, and the merely wealthy being paid over $400,000 per year, don't get paid in taxable wages. We need to tax wealth as well as wages.
Same here. I'm not in the 1%, but I'm making more money than I ever have and I do not whine about paying taxes. I like paved roads, good schools, and a fire department that comes when I call.
A first step would be to insist on equal educational opportunity for every kid. I literally think it ought to be a constitutional amendment. Every kid deserves a chance. That seems pretty American to me.
If we were able to do that, to make sure that every kid has the chance to learn how to create societal value--then over the next 30 to 40 years Black and Hispanic family incomes would rise to the level of White family income and a whole host of problems like the deficit and crime would disappear.
For about 10 years I was involved in an organization that used a model resembling that of LeBron James' "I Promise" school. It absolutely worked--we (and I say we guardedly because my contributions were minimal) got lots of kids to and through college. Kids who would have never made it otherwise. If we could make programs like these available to underprivileged kids we'd be a long way toward solving the problem. We could totally make that happen without raising taxes. We would just need to eliminate the current method of school district funding and equalize the educational funding for all kids.
Of course a very large percentage of the people on the other side of the political spectrum deeply do not want to solve this problem. They say they do but they really don't. What they really want to do is keep elite White male minority rule in place. We would have to call them on their bullshit, we would have to defeat their deflections (charter schools and the like). But it's doable.
We know how to do this. We know what works. In my mind, insisting on this is our only way out of this mess.
Amen. Absolutely. And good on you for this suggestion. CT tried to change the way we find school districts — a judge wrote a beautiful blueprint for that — and got shut down. The work continues. A child’s future should not be dictated by ZIP code.
The year I was born, the 200,001st dollar and above of wages were taxed at 91%. We'll never see that again, but the insanely wealthy, like Bezos and Musk, and the merely wealthy being paid over $400,000 per year, don't get paid in taxable wages. We need to tax wealth as well as wages.
I couldn’t agree more. We have flipped our values on their heads with our current tax system.
Same here. I'm not in the 1%, but I'm making more money than I ever have and I do not whine about paying taxes. I like paved roads, good schools, and a fire department that comes when I call.