Progressive Taxation

There's so much bad news online today, I'm feeling overwhelmed. (And I realize as I write those words that when I look back at this post, I won't know what particular things I was referring to. Oh well.)

Here's one thing that's kind of good:

I saw that shared on Twitter by Lars Negstad, policy director at ISAIAH in Minnesota. He said, "Taxes are how we take care of one another, but those with the most should pay the most." I'm from New York and live in Minnesota, so I've experienced progressive taxation my entire life. Even the three years I spent in Washington, D.C. was in a blue area on this map.

The depressing way to look at it, of course, is that the vast majority of states have tax rates that are the inverse, rather than falling in between: their richest people pay the lowest share.

It's common for Minnesota's Republicans to claim that people, especially rich retirees, flee the state because we're a high-tax state. Star Tribune business columnist Evan Ramstad — who isn't exactly a bleeding heart lefty — recently demonstrated that this is not the case. Older people are moving into Minnesota, in fact. And our highest tax brackets were higher in the 1970s and ’80s. 

Stand up to the race to the bottom. Those with the most should pay the most.