Chris Hayes dismantles the Republicans’ favourite new talking point that “the top 10 percent of ‘wage earners’ pay 70 percent of the income taxes.”
You have to hand it to the perverse genius of right-wingers sometimes, as in this case of using evidence of inequality to vehemently defend inequality or employing artfully deceitful expressions like “broadening the tax base” when they really mean sticking it to the working poor and middle-class.
Red Tory v.3.0.3 
I think there may be a difference of opinion on the “value of a vote”. In a democracy each person gets one vote. In a corporation common shareholders get votes proportionate to their ownership. Turning this around, if I only get one vote, then why should I pay more than one share? Fortunately the SCOTUS is moving to correct this flaw in democracy by allowing those with more capital to have more influence (e.g. more free speech) as in the Citizen United decision. Perhaps then the U.S. gov’t can be reformed to act better on behalf of the majority shareholders who bear most of the risk.
Ugh. I almost threw up in my mouth writing that.
BTW, Chris Hayes doesn’t dismantle anything. In fact, if you step back from his fancy graphics and simplistic analogy, you’ll see the pothole he’s stepping into in order to make his point.
He’s arguing that inequality is wrong–or a bad thing. Not sure what his alternatives to inequality would be. Maybe through the redistribution of wealth, maybe dis-incentifying people to innovate or improve. Sounds a lot like communism, and we know how well that has worked. In fact there are many countries like that and if Mr. Hayes is sold on his idea, he’s free to emigrate! I’m guessing he quite enjoys the massive benefits of living in a society where he is free to enjoy a share of life’s benefits commensurate to his personal contribution and inputs. Funny how he doesn’t elaborate on what income bracket he’s in.
Inequality is not wrong, and to suggest that it is, leads to places very few red-blooded north american’s are going to be willing to go. So while the chat seems informative and insightful, it’s really just capitalism bashing. We know there is no perfect system out there–when humans are involved–but more importantly, we also know which is by far, the least worst. And Mr. Hayes legislated equality is no where close to making the cut. Thank God he’s just a pundit.