By Tim Redmond
The New York Times reported yesterday that the 25 top hedge fund managers in the United States earned a combined $14 billion last year — “enough to pay New York City’s 80,000 public school teachers for nearly three years.”
Think about it. Twenty-five people earned in one year almost three times as much as every public school teacher in New York, put together.
And thanks to Bush’s tax cuts, those 25 people, all of whom took home at least $240 million in compensation last year, wil pay about one-thrid as much tax as they would have paid under such radical left-wing presidents as Richard Nixon.
This is why the public schools are in bad shape, the streets are filled with homeless people, poverty is on the rise across America, a growing number of qualified kids can’t afford to go to college … the list is endless.
And so far, I haven’t heard a single leading Democratic candidate for president talk about raising taxes (not just letting the Bush cuts expire, but actually raising taxes) on the people who “earn” obscene amounts of money.
This is, in my mind, the single most important problem in the nation. It makes me sick.