It’s very amusing, but, not in a good way, when uber-white Progressives like The Hill’s Emily Brooks white-knights for black people, and, really, say that blacks just cannot succeed without the help of The Government. And progressive white people, of course
America will never achieve racial justice without reforming our broken tax code
As inflation continues to impact working-class Americans across the country, reports show that Black Americans are being hit the hardest. On top of the massive economic inequalities caused by the pandemic, rising costs for housing, food, and gas are making it virtually impossible for Black communities to improve their financial conditions in material ways.
My grandfather — as a young person — met people who had been wealthy slave owners before the Civil War. It has only been a few generations since more of America’s wealth was derived from enslaved people rather than farmland or factories. We have come a long way since then.
What, exactly, does her grandfather knowing people who owned slaves have to do with anything? In Progressive Grievance World, though, it seems they’re all living like it’s 1850
Unfortunately, there is still a very long way to go. Black Americans continue to face systemic discrimination in virtually every corner and every institution in America. One of the most salient yet overlooked places where Black Americans encounter bias, however, is our nation’s tax code. Its preferential treatment of existing wealth over income leaves the Black community at a permanent disadvantage when compared to their significantly wealthier white counterparts.
As a result of decades of racist federal policies like redlining, Black Americans hold nowhere near the level of wealth that white Americans do. The ratio of white-to-Black wealth in America today is 6 to 1; for every dollar the average white American holds, the average black American holds only 17 cents. If Black Americans held a share of national wealth that was equal in proportion to their share of the population, they would hold $12.68 trillion in total wealth instead of $2.54 trillion, which puts the total racial wealth gap at $10.14 trillion. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a situation where Black Americans are overrepresented among the poor and underrepresented among the rich, making up 26% of the poorest fifth of the country and just 3% of the richest fifth.
Um, OK? But, the tax code applies to all colors equally. If you make between $40,526 to $86,375 your rate is 22%. The tax code doesn’t know your skin color. In Progressive World, everything is raaaaacist. Emily makes quite a few leaps of Liberal Logic in attempting to link rich people being rich to the tax code being bad for blacks.
Despite the complexities of the matter, there’s one simple solution that would help address this problem. Wealthy, predominantly white investors should be asked to pay taxes just like people who work for a living while workers should be given some more financial breathing room. We should be making it easier, not harder, for Black workers (and workers of all races) to save and spend their hard-earned cash and build better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities, while asking more from the ultra-wealthy who can easily afford to pay more.
They do. They pay a hell of a lot more monetarily in taxes. Sure, the percent may seem lower, but, they feed more money back into the economy, create businesses and jobs, give to charities. Emily is also upset that they do not pay full taxes on capital gains. I’m really not sure how this would create any sort of equality/equity, it’s just penalizing people who had nothing to do with slavery.
I myself am a wealthy, white investor living in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Nowhere in this piece does Emily mention that she is paying full boat on her taxes, forgoing deductions, paying full boat on capital gains. Because, let’s be honest, this is all about Virtue Signaling without doing a damned thing in their own lives.
What a difference an administration makes.
Building wind and solar farms is an important part of building a new green grid, but a calm night stops their energy generation cold. It’s just as important to research and build green energy storage — and to that at scale requires federal intervention as soon as possible, suggests a new report from MIT.
A state judge has entered an injunction that will block Gov. Tom Wolf’s second-term crusade to ramp up Pennsylvania’s role in the worldwide struggle against climate change.
An academic article, styled as a “love letter” that seeks to provide the “consciousness needed to eradicate whiteness,” was published by the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
A proposed rule released by the Biden administration Thursday would require states and cities to set carbon emission reduction targets for transportation.
