#Red4Ed

It all started here in WV.

It's been great to see the huge masses of teachers and their allies filling the streets in Raleigh, North Carolina today. I hope the ball that started rolling in West Virginia keeps moving on. And that the victories keep coming.

Like the WV strike, the protests in North Carolina highlight the damage done by passing irresponsible and unproductive tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy at the expense of things like education, health and infrastructure.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that tax cuts enacted in NC since 2013, which haven't even gone into full effect yet, have included:

*Across-the-board cuts to personal income tax rates that disproportionately benefit the wealthy by replacing the state’s graduated system (with rates of 6, 7, and 7.75 percent) with a flat rate, currently 5.499 percent.

*A cut of more than half to the corporate income tax rate, which has fallen from 6.9 percent in 2013 to 3 percent today.

*An end to the state’s estate tax, which will only benefit heirs of estates worth over $5.25 million — under 1 percent of estates.

I guess you could say you get what you don't pay for.

In case you were thinking this is just a coincidence, which anyone reading this probably isn't, check out this piece on how billionaires and corporations have been pushing this kind of agenda for years.
It gets pretty specific.

Then there's this Bloomberg story on how tax cuts pushed the the Kochs and their ilk have driven teachers to the streets. I particularly like this line:

"The wave of strikes in the past three months is just the latest sign that Tea Party-style austerity is losing favor."

May it be so.