Comments by "bart thomassen thomassen" (@thomassenbart) on "Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality. Here’s How. | NYT Opinion" video.

  1. I like the criticism of the Demos and Leftist states but truthfully, 2/3of these areas and the criticisms leveled are fundamentally incorrect. It is not equity and higher taxes, which create wealth and opportunity but the opposite. The larger the State and bureaucracy and higher the taxes, the less wealth and greater poverty one achieves. Also, there is no way in Washington state, that the poorest quintile is paying 17% taxes. If they pay anything at all, certainly not income tax, it is in the form of sales tax and FICA; neither equaling 17%. Also, most of these folk are very likely to be net income recipients of redistributionist programs, to include Child tax credits, Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies, free school lunch, SNAP, etc... etc... The wealthy on the other hand, such as Gates, listed as paying 3%, is almost certainly paying vastly more, with this figure only representing income tax, rather than taxes on dividends, stocks, real estate, etc....Gates said he has paid $10 billion in taxes total. Bezos, chief exec. of Amazon, paid $973 million in taxes last year, with an income of $4.22 billion. That's not 3%. Education issues in the USA are not a function of money spent. The US out spends almost the entire planet in actual and per capita spending and yet our national testing and international testing, is abysmal. The issues lay in how we educate, not the money we spend. Even poorer districts receive vast amounts of money, relatively speaking. Having a system based upon zip code is one of the fundamental problems. Parents need choice in schooling and children should have vouchers attached to them, which allows each student to choose where to go and would foster competition for those dollars and children between schools. Also, obviously the teacher's unions are serious impediments to actual education, as has been made abundantly clear during COVID and over CRT etc... Homelessness, criminality, irresponsibility, identity politics and infantilization of the public are destroying the nation, especially in blue states and it is the Leftist political and economic mindset, that is the problem and needs to be abandoned to correct these issues.
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