Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas: Texas: Two Billionaires Want to Destroy Public Edu...

Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas: Texas: Two Billionaires Want to Destroy Public Edu...: Posting this piece by Diane Ravitch together with the actual, must-see CNN documentary titled "Deep in the Pockets of Texas" that&...

How the anti tax argument is framed

Well. The Sacramento Bee certainly found a conservative voice for the attack on the proposed tax measures  to be faced by voters in fall 2012.  Lets look at the distractions Ben Boychuk  throws up and the issues he chose to not discuss in his piece in the Sacramento Bee for March 22,2012.

First,   in arguing that “Progressives are deluding themselves”   he describes  Governor Brown and SEIU as moderates, then he labels the California Federation of Teachers as  “ far left”.  The reason for this name calling approach to argumentation?  To criticize the compromise tax proposals worked out by Governor Brown, the various unions and the California Federation of Teachers  last week.

 Boychuk    goes on to make the argument that the very wealthy should not be taxed more  and to claim that those who argue for more taxes are “ far left”.  This is a ploy.

If you are standing as far right as the Boychuk’s employer the  Manhattan Institute then almost everyone appears to be on the far left. See the conservative Manhattan Institute web page at  www.city-journal.org   Under the label “make the rich pay” Boychuk  accurately  calculates  how much the wealthy currently pay, but he does tell you that the wealth pay less as a percentage of the income on taxes than do all the rest of us- the 90%. 

A report of the California Budget Project notes that “measured as a share of family income”, California’s lowest-income families pay the most in taxes. The bottom fifth of the state’s families, with an average income of $12,600, spent 11.1 percent of their income on state and local taxes.  In comparison, the wealthiest 1 percent, with an average income of $2.3 million, spent 7.8 percent of their income on state and local taxes.”