Normally, the basic idea of our tax system is that you figure out how much you profit on a transaction, then pay tax as a percentage of that profit. Unfortunately, our tax code is broken, and people like Jared Kushner have taken advantage of that. The simplest explanation for this is that the tax code is very complicated, and it isn’t the responsibility of taxpayers … Continue reading Our Tax Code is Broken When it Comes to Real Estate
Recently, Amazon announced it will begin paying its full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers a minimum wage of $15 per hour. To be clear, this is great news. The question is: why did we have to wait for Amazon to do it? There should already be a federally mandated minimum wage of $15 per hour. Since 2009, the federal minimum has been stuck at just … Continue reading Why Did We Have to Wait on Amazon to Pay a Fair Wage?
President Trump may not be able to say it, but it’s all but undeniable at this point that the Russian government attacked American democracy during the 2016 election. While the Russia story might get all of the mainstream news coverage, there’s another, more insidious assault on our democracy underway, and this one’s coming from within. Across the country, ballot initiatives– one of the only ways … Continue reading Direct Democracy is Under Attack
Capitalism, for better or worse, is a race to the top where the starting gun only goes off once. As much as we may like to think that our economic circumstances are determined by our talent and hard work alone, there are hundreds of years of history that play a role in influencing the path our professional lives take. There’s a reason white guys like … Continue reading Becoming a Millionaire Just Got a Million Times Harder
Last year, Republicans unilaterally passed tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy and corporations. By giving tax cuts to wealthy Americans, particularly investors, Republicans claimed their tax bill would lead to substantial job and wage growth. Unsurprisingly, this has not happened. As an investor myself, I can tell you why: it’s because I’m not a job creator. For decades, conservatives have credited the investor class … Continue reading I’m Not a Job Creator
In Trump’s latest efforts to enrich wealthy people like himself, his administration recently proposed indexing the capital gains tax rate to inflation. This change would give billions of dollars in tax cuts to wealthy investors, while giving no relief at all to the working class. Right now, the capital gains tax is one of the only safeguards against the upper class’s unprecedented accumulation of wealth, … Continue reading How Many Tax Cuts Do Millionaires Need?
In order to ensure the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of December 2017 (TCJA), the GOP expanded a loophole to particularly benefit those who would vote on it: themselves. This includes deficit-hawk Senator Corker (TN), who had been undecided on breaking his promise to not add to the deficit. Now, the GOP are trying to make that loophole a permanent tax deduction. … Continue reading Pass on Tax Cuts
Yesterday, the DC City Council voted 8 to 5 to repeal the democratically enacted Initiative 77. The ballot measure would have gradually raised the tipped minimum wage until it matched the regular DC minimum wage of $15/hr. This is an outrage. This summer, Initiative 77 won the support of voters by an 11-point margin. Instead of this being the end of it, City Council has … Continue reading DC Council Repealed Voter-Approved Initiative 77
Today, Amazon announced it will increase its minimum wage to $15/hr for all full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers. Starting November 1, over 350,000 workers will see an increase in their paychecks due to the collective pressure put on Amazon to pay their employees a living wage. This decision comes on the heels of months worth of articles and reports criticizing the $1 trillion company … Continue reading Amazon Takes a Step in the Right Direction With $15/hr Minimum Wage
We all know the moral arguments for a fairer, less cruel immigration system. But while the merits of not putting immigrant children in cages should be obvious, they don’t seem to be as persuasive as they should for a certain segment of the population. To those who are unconvinced by the moral argument, I would offer up the economic argument for a better immigration system, … Continue reading Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Policies Will Hurt the American Economy
It seems like every day we see another news story about how conservative politicians found a new and innovative way to disenfranchise minority populations living in urban centers. But while voter ID laws and partisan gerrymandering (rightfully) earn significant outrage, there’s another issue discriminately shifting political power in virtually every state that’s flown under the radar: prison gerrymandering. Prison gerrymandering is the practice of state … Continue reading “One Person, One Vote” Doesn’t Count for Urban Communities
Restaurant employees across the nation are facing a serious threat to their wages, pushed by the legal arm of the National Restaurant Association, or “the other NRA.” Just as the National Rifle Association is a front group for weapons manufacturers (they are majority-funded by them, not concerned citizens), the National Restaurant Association is a front group for restaurant owners. They routinely oppose policies that would … Continue reading Show Up Against Wage Theft
Dear kids, My generation, the Baby Boomers, have succeeded during my/our adulthood in totally screwing this country up. Sorry! The deficit is only getting larger, the cost of higher education has skyrocketed, and healthcare for all– despite being a human rights issue– still eludes us. Our military has a presence across the globe but peace has still not been reached. I vote, and I urge … Continue reading A Letter to My Children From Your Loving Papa
We’ve come a long way as a country in expanding voting access to more than just rich, white, male landowners. Since its passage, we’ve consistently relied on the 14th Amendment to bring us closer to an electorate truly representative of our population. But we’ve got a long way to go, and with an administration that has proven itself to be in favor of limiting access … Continue reading Brett Kavanaugh’s Aversion to the Equal Protection Clause is Troubling
It’s hard to deny that our democracy is in crisis. Two years after the 2016 Presidential election, we’re still uncovering bits and pieces of the fraud, foreign interference, and fake news that brought us this administration.
Every time I turn on the financial news, I see that the stock market (on average) has been rising for a record amount of time (3,453 days as of the writing of this piece). Every program trumpets this consistent rise in value as an incredible positive for the American people. But who’s it really helping? It’s been working for me. I made about $18,000 today … Continue reading I Made Money Today
In her recent piece in the New Yorker “Gospels of Giving for the New Gilded Age,” Elizabeth Kolbert rightly calls out the American donor class for their underwhelming philanthropic leanings. Too many ultra-wealthy Americans spend millions of dollars on efforts that may purport to make the world a better place, but that in many instances do nothing but serve to further their own ideological vision for what our society should look like.
I’m an employer who pays my workers a living wage– no one in my plant makes less than $15/hr. Normally in our capitalist system, paying higher wages would make my business less competitive, simply because a higher median wage costs more. But one thing that has been lost in this whole minimum wage debate is the value that raising incomes for the working classes brings … Continue reading Stop Requiring Me to Subsidize Bad Business Practices
As a U.S. citizen, I understand our taxes go towards paying for things we as a society feel are necessary.
Congressional Republicans sure have a hard time with math. In the most recent House budget, they included massive cuts to the Pell Grant program, which allows millions of students each year to better afford a college education, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. We can’t afford it, they say. It’s a sign of how quickly things change, I guess, that we suddenly can’t afford … Continue reading Bye Bye Pell Grants, Hello Even More Student Loan Debt