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Not the one I live in.I live in Oklahoma, one of the reddest states in the union. Our greatest asset is low cost of living and insulation from national economic trends. A recession on the coast will take two or more years to get here.Education has major issues here. Last year there was a series of popular marches and strikes by the entire state k-12 education system. No major changes happened though it did prompt several teachers to get onto the ballot in hopes of being governor.There is extensive poverty, drug use and poor family planning. Many young mothers are single and trapped in poverty as a result. College is the one path out and getting into certain programs is very competitive.There aren’t blue states, while the issue is at hand. There are blue urban areas and red rural areas. The difference in Oklahoma is that the urban areas are more likely to vote Republican. Liberal is a slur out here, and us Democrats have learned to be quiet and listen.There is intense corruption in the central state institutions. Our previous governor would vacation using taxpayer funds. She was passionate about keeping the poor that way and giving money away to large businesses. We just elected a new government but things will only change slowly.I’m leaving this place as soon as I can. The climate isn’t to my taste, but the politics are part of it. It’s hard to live among people who love money over other humans. The biggest hypocrisy is the power that Christianity has meanwhile the poor are ignored. It gets lonely, but most young people are of a similar mind to leave and go somewhere better.We have to get help from the federal government to function. Oklahoma is a taking state, more blue states pay in more than they take out. It’s a clear way to understand that the Republican policy is to take from the needy and give to the rich. Everyone loses though, because we all need low crime and functioning roads.Update: In response to popularity, here is another interesting Oklahoma political fact.Elizabeth Warren was born and raised in the Oklahoma city area. This was during the time that Oklahoma was a less conservative state. The parties were also substantially different at the time. It’s still exciting to find out that a potential candidate for president grew up in the same state that I did.Warren worked a good share of her professional life in another conservative state, Texas. It will almost certainly affect how she relates to people from this part of the country. This is further evidence that there are progressive beliefs in Oklahoma (and Texas). It remains to be seen how her campaign will progress.It would be pretty shocking if the next Democratic president was born in heart of “compassionate conservatism.”Update on the state of education in the state of Oklahoma:There is currently a state bill about to be debated in the state house of representatives for Oklahoma. In this state the state house, state senate and governor have a super majority, meaning that Republicans can pass whatever bills they want.The bill is about teacher walkouts. It makes it illegal for teachers to walk out or protest. If a teacher does walkout in defiance of the law in addition to other penalties they will never be able to teach in Oklahoma again. It’s a lifetime ban. Teaching here isn’t a prize due to large class sizes and tiny budgets, and this gets rid of what little protection teachers have.If you are conservative and struggle to get why this is bad, imagine this:Suppose that your boss could cut your salary at any point. Imagine that if that happened and you quit your job you’d never be able to work in your field again without moving away, which you won’t have money for because you probably didn’t expect to be screwed in such a creative way by your boss.This is a step away from employment and towards slavery. The labor laws in Oklahoma are already employer friendly. Employers rarely pay for unemployment and can get away with whatever verbal and physical abuse they desire under the umbrella of Oklahoma being an “at will” state. At will means that most people have no obligations to their employer to stay, and the employer has no obligation to provide a job.The great irony is the man who introduced this bill, Todd Russ, is married to a school teacher. It’s unclear why someone married to a school teacher would do such horrible things to teachers.The bill is called HB2214 and will be read in on 02/04/2019. From there it will go through two committee approval/markup processes before going to the floor of the house for a vote. After that it goes to the senate for a vote, followed by the governor’s desk for a signature.In all less than 800 people control the destiny of millions of teachers and students in Oklahoma. There is a huge teacher shortage due to what few people study teaching leaving for bordering states for better teaching positions and wages. If this bill passes it is expected that more teachers will take retirement, change careers or move out of the state.In a state that claims to love children, we consider them a lesser burden to keeping people in prison. We are first in the country for female incarceration, and regularly rank highly for various negative prison statistics. We also have record pregnancies and amounts of single mothers.This is relevant because of institutionalization and the school to prison pipeline. Family involvement and small class sizes decrease the chances a child will drop out or act up at school. Our state policy is to deny children the ability to succeed.I want to be clear: I don’t hate Oklahoma. It is where I grew up, and I love it, the way a child loves their alcoholic father. I wish it would get itself together. I want it to be first in the country for all the right reasons.It just isn’t a very kind or empathetic place. It’s a place where it’s easy and great to be wealthy (and sometimes middle class) and a nightmare to be poor. The wealthy can buy better schools, private security and other services. Those at the bottom cannot. We are a center of intense Christianity where the poor are despised. It isn’t a Christian attitude, it isn’t even a traditionally Oklahoman attitude. It’s the attitude of Fox News and the Republican Leadership.

“Did you know that I never paid taxes before I came here? The Edema don’t own property, as a rule.” He gestured at the inn. “I never understood how galling it was. Some smug bastard with a ledger comes into town, makes you pay for the privilege of owning something.”Kvothe gestured for Chronicler to pick up his pen. “Now, of course, I understand the truth of things. I know what sort of dark desires lead a group of men to wait beside the road, killing tax collectors in open defiance of the king.Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s FearThis is actually a pretty great question, Dave. I apologize in advance, this answer might get a little on the lengthy side for today’s TL;DR culture, but I know you’re personally likely to read the whole thing and would most likely appreciate the depth.Why are people so averse to tax increases, when those increases would lead to a much higher quality of life for themselves and others?This depends on where you live, what station in life you occupy, and what your perceptions of the quality of government and politics are.And it really depends on whether or not tax increases do lead to a perceptibly higher standard of living for yourself.I was just having this very conversation with two relatives about two weeks ago.We were discussing the economy and the relative fragility of it if some bubble were to burst right now (which I think will be either student debt or another dotcom bubble in FAANG stocks,) the government is currently not taking in enough revenue to adequately fund the kind of spending it will need to prevent it from being a deep recession, possibly even depression. That led to discussions of taxes, which quickly led to Ocasio-Cortez and the marginal tax rate.For context, I grew up in a rural, heavily Republican area that broke about 62–32 for Trump. My family was in leadership in the Grange when that still existed. I was probably in college before I met a Democrat. And while my family tends to think Trump is a terrible human being and pray that someone confiscates his phone, they’re generally supportive of conservative policies.I’m a slightly center-right person and a never-Trumper, myself. In certain parts of my family, that has put their perception of me somewhere on the left roughly between Marx and Chavez as of late.The first question I was asked in this conversation after I suggested that we are not taxing the wealthiest enough was why I want to punish rich people for being successful.It is important for me to give a brief primer on the three basic types of taxes: regressive, flat, and progressive taxes, for those who are not already familiar with them.Regressive taxes are where the lower your income, the higher a percentage of your income the tax takes. Flat fees are regressive taxes. The policy here is equality: everyone pays the same amount.Example:A poor person making $1000 a month who has to pay a $100 fee pays 10% of their income. They have $900 remaining to budget for the month.A middle-class person making $10,000 a month who has to pay a $100 fee pays just one percent of their income. This person has $9,900 remaining to budget for the month.A wealthy person making $100,000 per months who has to pay a $100 fee pays just one tenth of a percent of their income. They have $99,900 left to budget for the month.Note that this tends to be hard on poor people and almost meaningless to a wealthy person. Each order of magnitude up in income doesn’t increase income by 10x after the tax, it’s greater than 10x.Flat taxes are a flat rate. The percent remains unchanged as the income increases or decreases. The policy here is fairness; everyone pays the same percentage.Example:Our poor person making $1,000 a month paying a 10% tax pays $100. They have $900 a month to live off of.Our middle-class person pays $1,000. They still have $9,000 left to budget for the month. They’re paying in taxes what our poor person makes in a month.Our wealthy person pays $10,000 in taxes, ten times the total income of the poor person and ten times the taxes of the middle class person. They still have $90,000 remaining to budget for the month.Note that our wealthy person has seven and a half times as much remaining for the month as our poor person would make in income in a year if we didn’t tax our poor person at all. Our person in poverty is still in poverty.But, from the perspective of our wealthy person, he’s shouldering the same tax burden as half a dozen other less well-off individuals.Progressive taxes are where the higher your income, the higher your percentage of your income it takes. The policy here is ability to pay; everyone pays what they can afford.Example:Our poor person pays 0% taxes. They have $1,000 for the month to budget.Our middle class person pays 10% in taxes. They still have $9,000 remaining for the month to budget, 9x more than the person in poverty.Our wealthy person pays 40% in taxes, because the math is easy and it’s a nice big number. They still have $60,000 remaining for the month to budget.Our wealthy person is footing a massive tax bill, but still has five times more per month than our person in poverty has in a year. They have as much left over after taxes in three months what the person in the middle class has left over after taxes in twenty.Now, in reality, these are usually taxed in brackets. Our wealthy person isn’t really paying the full 40% in taxes. Assuming our brackets are just between our hypothetical people, they would pay 0% on the first $1,000 per month, 10% on the amount between $1,000 and $10,000 per month, and 40% on the amount over $10,000 per month. The math gets slightly tricky, but the effective overall rate would be somewhere closer to 30% here.Certain flat taxes function more regressively, particularly “consumption taxes” such as sales taxes, value-added taxes, etc. While the wealthy pay the same sales tax on a product, that product and associated tax are a comparatively smaller proportion of their income than for the poor, simply because it’s just not possible for them to consume a proportionately greater share of products than the corresponding increase in their income.The gasoline tax, for example, is a flat tax that functions regressively, particularly on populations that need to drive more as a function of living such as rural populations.These can be hybridized to an extent. For example, one way to make flat taxes more progressive and less impactful on poor people is to exempt a certain amount; say 25% on everything over $50,000. A person making less than $50,000 pays no tax at all. A person making over $50,000 pays 25% only on what they make over $50,000; i.e. if they make $100,000, they pay tax only on $50,000, or $12,500 in tax rather than $25,000.It sadly needs to be explained that this is how marginal tax rates work, which is what progressives are suggesting be raised. Nobody is seriously suggesting that we tax the wealthy at a full 70% total; the first ten million dollars annually would be exempted.First person that starts bitching about Ocasio-Cortez and socialism in the comments because they read that last bit, skipped the rest of the answer, and jumped straight to the comments to argue gets put out the airlock.Higher taxes generally provide very little increased standards of living to the rural poor.Americans, particularly rural Americans, have a few things working against them.First, they’re often less educated in particular when it comes to civics.Not a single member of my family knew the difference between the basic types of taxes. They have vaguely heard of the idea of a flat tax replacing all the various sales taxes and stuff, and they like that idea, but that is the extent of their knowledge regarding tax policy. The argument with my relatives started because they were trying to figure out whether certain retirement account dollars are taxed when they are taken out and how the economy will affect their retirement.Very few people from my home area have any trust or love of government and see it at best as keeping the roads plowed and salted.And they have reasons.[1]Many of them have bought into the idea that gubbmint takes their money and sends it all down to Madison and Milwaukee to the lazy people who don’t work and live fat off the public trough.Whether this is true or not, it feels true to them. Why?You have to understand, where I grew up, most people live hand to mouth and struggle for that. It’s mostly manufacturing and small dairy, both industries that have been especially hard hit in the last thirty years. Milk prices are lower than they were when I was a child, and when you figure in inflation and the increasing cost of overhead (diesel fuel, electricity, etc.) it’s impossible to keep a small dairy running these days. One of the largest manufacturers in my hometown folded and took probably a quarter of the local economy with it.These people are utterly convinced and have been since Reagan that government, particularly regulation, is the problem.The farmers constantly complain about how those idjits in Madison who wouldn’t know one end of a cow from another come out and tell ’em how to do things when any person with common sense coulda toldja that was stupid and costly for no actual benefit.The schools are largely funded by property taxes. In rural areas, who are the biggest landowners? And who are the ones whose land values keep going up? Farmers.My grandfather used to talk about being land-rich, money-poor. And he’s right.Land is a valuable asset, but not a liquid one. So, every year the assessor comes out and tell you that your land is worth 2% more, so your taxes are going up 2%. And you’re sitting there knowing that milk prices haven’t budged, soybeans and corn are down, seed is going up, and you’re out of notches on the tight end of the belt.And then the school says they’re broke and needs a referendum for a new auditorium. It’ll raise your taxes another 1% this year. Another couple of thousand bucks. That could be an acre’s worth of soybean seed.Do those taxes feel enough like a punishment yet?Even if you’ve got kids in school and you know that auditorium is in disrepair or hasn’t been updated since it was built in 1965, how are you going to pay for that tax increase? Sell some land? Sell some cows? Sell some equipment?Most folks where I grew up ain’t got it to spare.So, when that “smug bastard with a ledger comes into town, makes you pay for the privilege of owning something,” yeah, it sure feels like a punishment for having anything of value.Now, add to that the perception that these people feel at least like they’re not getting a fair shake at life and government isn’t doing much to help it.What are they getting? Their roads are crumbling.[2] [3] Their schools are failing if not just plain closing, and teachers are fleeing in droves from rural districts to better paying urban ones.[4] [5] Health insurance premiums and deductibles have continued to go up.[6] Their kids are dying of suicides and overdoses.[7] [8]My people don’t feel like their quality of life is improving with higher taxes.And then some guy from Milwaukee wants to take tax dollars and build a choo-choo that’ll never go anywhere near their farm.[9]That’s what these folks see.Now, it is also true that the rural poor benefit a great deal in ways they don’t consider from the higher taxes. The New Deal built the vast majority of the infrastructure where I grew up. My grandfather remembers when their farm got hooked up to electricity and telephone thanks to the rural electrification efforts. Rural roads all over the state were paved to keep dust out of the milk; there are more miles of gravel roads in one non-dairy county in the western part of the state than the rest of the state combined. The CCC planted millions of red pine hedgerows to slow down the dust storms and erosion in the Central Sands region and practically built the town of Stevens Point. Kids still go to school in buildings constructed through WPA grants.A large tax push in the 1960’s also built a substantial piece of educational infrastructure; the University of Wisconsin System constructed the vast majority of the classroom and dorm buildings for both four-year universities and two-year community colleges in the late 1960’s, and many communities around the state built new elementary and secondary school buildings, particularly in rural areas, at the same time. Many of those rural schools now sit vacant, sold off to private businesses, or converted into local government centers as districts consolidated buildings. (When I was in first grade, I started at a rural school south of town and our class moved to a renovated school in town over Christmas break; the building was eventually sold to a local construction company that still uses it.)Tack on the Farm Bill and agriculture subsidies, the fact that many of those people are in school districts that are well over 50% on free and reduced lunch, many qualifying for the earned income tax credit, and more, and it adds up quickly to rural poor getting far more back in benefits than they pay in.The three major urban centers in the state (Milwaukee, Madison, and the Fox Valley area) generate a significant majority of the state’s revenue, and receive less back than they generate, even after taking into account major road projects such as several recent interstate overhauls.Not only that, but Wisconsin made a deal in 1911 with the municipalities of the state: in exchange for a state law prohibiting cities and municipalities from instituting local income taxes, they would get more state aid. Since the 1990’s, the state legislature has reneged on that deal, and state aid to counties and municipalities has continued to decrease. In 1995, 53% of Milwaukee’s budget consisted of state aid. For fiscal year 2017, it was 36%. Urban areas are losing a greater share of state aid every fiscal year, while paying in more.But rural counties have also been heavily hit.This reduction in local aid was drastically heightened under the Scott Walker administration, who reduced county aid so significantly that many rural counties had to cut mowing county road ditches down to perhaps once in the summer. One county where I have a friend on the county board has had to start asking for farmers to volunteer to mow their areas. The school aid formula hasn’t been updated in nearly 30 years and doesn’t account for transportation costs, which have been hammering rural districts with rising fuel prices to bus kids in from long distances.And that’s with taxes continuing to stay flat or only rise a little bit.Rural health care options have been declining for a long period of time, in part because they aren’t profitable, and in part because some complex procedures just aren’t performed often enough that health care providers are able to keep the staff trained; even birth services are being dropped because of the risk of complications or c-sections.[10] [11] [12] [13] There just isn’t a lot of trust in government to keep things like this from happening.Essentially, these folks might see the cost of their health insurance decrease with a switch to universal health care, since the rural areas are largely already poor enough that they’re heavily subsidized through the current ACA system[14][15], (though they still generally have higher premiums anyway,)[16] but likely wouldn’t see any increase in quality of care.Most of the tax benefit they see just doesn’t seem terribly visible to them, while any increase in taxes is quite visible. Thus, these folks have no reason to believe that their quality of life will increase if they pay higher taxes, even if they could afford it.And ultimately, the tax increase necessary to fund the kind of infrastructure, public utilities and services, and programs such as universal health care for rural populations would be massive if the burden fell on them alone, simply because of population density.Higher taxes don’t improve the standard of living for the already-wealthy.The vast majority of the economic recovery in the United States after the 2008 recession went to a) the largest urban areas of the country, and b) to the already wealthy.[17]For the wealthy, higher taxes are not only highly unlikely to result in a higher standard of living, they’d be prone to decreasing the standard of living that a wealthy person already enjoys.For the most wealthy, what they would receive from social programs such as Social Security is less than a rounding error in their annual income just from carried interest on their assets. The benefit from a buy-in option for Medicare is meaningless when a person can pay for platinum-level insurance plans with the change in their couch cushions, if not simply outright own the hospital.For them, universal health care is probably a step down. They’d likely have to maintain supplemental insurance to cover what they currently have. They’d basically get the same care they get now at more or less the same price, except now it wouldn’t be optional for them to pay in.They benefit somewhat from public investments into infrastructure; after all, what’s the use in driving a Bentley or Beamer around if the roads are terrible? Private jets don’t work as well without GPS and traffic control towers at the airports, even if you have a private hangar.Edit: Kagan Hudayar brought up a couple of very good points about ways that I had not listed that the wealthy benefit from higher taxes put back into national investment. Better infrastructure reduces the friction costs for business - this is why we have an interstate system. (Contrary to popular myth, Eisenhower didn’t come up with it as a way to move military forces quickly; he saw how it improved German industry with its ability to quickly move resources.)Public infrastructure such as transit also reduces employment costs. Employees that can get to work efficiently are more productive for the wage costs, and allows employers to get labor from a wider geographical region, which improves their ability to recruit better workers.Poverty is more heavily correlated with crime than anything else. People in poverty are more desperate, more likely to be willing to turn to illicit means to make things happen. There’s little good in having a million dollar mansion on a hill when you’re afraid to leave it or get robbed. And if things are bad enough, all the security forces in the world are not going to protect you when the mob with torches and pitchforks decides they’ve had enough with the plutocrats.[18]Kagan also worded this better than I think I could paraphrase it:And additionally, the ONLY way the wealthy can keep their wealth and grow it from generation to generation is by ensuring a well educated, well fed, and economically advantaged middle class. It doesn’t matter how I make my money. If the masses can’t buy more and more widgets, my business will shrink, my stocks in companies who sell widgets will diminish in value, and ultimately, we will enter a recession that is impossible to get out of. It seems to me, what the wealthy conservatives actually want is a system more in line with banana republics and under-developed nations. What they fail to realize is that the end-result will also be the same as it has been for these impoverished nations.He’s exactly right. If you want to grow the economy, give money to poor people. They will buy things. When people can’t buy things, the whole system falls apart. The wealthy can only stay wealthy, and continue to grow that wealth, if there is sufficient distribution of it to the rest of the world to support it.That perspective, however, is tempered with the idea that they shoulder the vast majority of the tax burden - as much as 70% of it.[19] [20] [21] [22]That feels heavily unfair to them. As a percentage, they’re basically subsidizing the rest of us poor schmucks.On the other hand, the richest 10% of Americans control more than 90% of the overall wealth.[23]Depending on what side you look at it from, it can either seem totally unfair to place the tax burden on the wealthy, or that they are not shouldering their fair share.One way to look at it is that fewer than 10,000 people control 90% of the nation’s wealth - shouldn’t they pay 90% of the nation’s tax burden? Or, alternatively, fewer than 10,000 people are effectively paying for all of the rest of us to have Social Security and Medicare and don’t benefit hardly at all from those programs.If you’re already wealthy, what perspective would you be prone to taking?This is why they fight tooth and nail to keep the carried interest loophole[24], repeal or raise the exemption amounts for the estate tax[25], use offshore accounts to disguise their assets[26] [27] [28], and to raise the amount of pass-through income for LLPs and LLCs.[29]These people see no standard of living increase from higher taxes, and for the ultra-wealthy, would probably mean having only the smaller yacht to get to their villa in Tuscany for the winter. The shame. What will the Carlisles say?The main people who visibly see a rise in the standard of living from higher taxes are the urban poor and the suburban middle class.The urban poor generally see small percent increases in taxes, but because of the overall concentration of people in one area, tend to get the most benefit from reinvestment back in the community.For example, urban areas are more likely to have public transit systems which make it possible for the urban poor to move about without the costs of owning a vehicle and insuring it. The rural poor do not have this advantage; no car = walking, biking, or getting a ride.To keep public transit systems affordable for riders, they are generally subsidized with tax dollars and are not self-sustaining. So, the urban poor get a comparatively higher benefit from that tax investment.The urban poor are much less likely to be landowners[30][31], and if they are, the value of the properties owned by the urban poor is significantly less than rural landowners simply by virtue of location and size.[32] An urban poor to lower-middle-class person might own a home, but it is unlikely to be larger than half an acre of property or valued at higher than $250,000. A rural poor farmer with almost any acreage very likely has an asset valued at at least as much; a rural poor farmer with 360 acres of total land may have a net worth on paper of several million dollars, but often with very little net income.This significantly impacts property taxes, which are the most common way that local municipalities are funded.The urban poor combined pay a lot in property taxes, in smaller individual amounts, and receive back infrastructure that simply due to density and availability is more tangibly and visibly raising their standard of living.The rural poor, on the other hand, pay larger individual amounts of property taxes that simply due to density issues don’t amount to as much, and end up supporting comparatively less immediately visible infrastructure.Both urban and rural poor would probably benefit significantly from social programs such as universal health care. But, as discussed above, the rural poor are more likely to be significantly distrustful of whether they will actually benefit from that program.The urban poor, on the other hand, are unlikely to be working jobs that have health benefits at all. Universal health care would be an enormous benefit to them, and because of the population density, they are more likely to have access to excellent medical options in metro-area hospitals.The suburban middle class is who really sees a lot of benefit for their tax dollars.Their density is slightly less than the urban poor, but the value of their properties is likely to be double. (This is highly dependent on geography; it is far more true in the Midwest than on the East Coast, for example. But, the overall trend is this direction.) Overall, the combined tax revenue from the suburbs compared to its population density means that almost everything in the municipality is likely to be better funded and require less infrastructure in some ways.For example, suburbs generally do not require a public transit system - most people there are in the lower-middle-class and likely have a car and a garage to park it in. So, that’s one big urban government expense municipalities don’t have to worry about.Smaller population densities means fewer police, fire, and EMS are required to service the same area. Schools can service a greater area without being overcrowded, but without having to extend themselves into such a great area as to require substantial student transportation in order to have enough students to justify having a school at all. Suburbs are dense enough to justify public works infrastructure such as centralized water and sewage treatment, but not so dense as to make such works difficult to construct, maintain, and run.That all means more money per capita that can go into schools, police, fire, and public works and services.Universal health care would be an enormous benefit to the suburban middle. These people are more likely to be working full-time with benefits including health insurance, but are also very likely to have seen drastically rising costs associated with that insurance.[33] [34] [35] This group of people is most likely going to see a significant decrease in overall personal costs if the nation were to move into universal health care. They would gladly pay more in taxes because it would likely mean a greater increase in compensation from full-time employment and less than the projected tax in current payment of deductibles and premium co-pays.Additionally, they’re likely to be close to major metro area hospitals that provide full-service care, much unlike the rural areas that are seeing care options decline significantly, which means that universal health care would provide them with advanced care at a cheaper price than they’re paying right now.All of this combined means a significantly more visibly higher standard of living for a comparatively small tax increase than urban or rural areas.Overall, higher taxes generally tangibly increase the standard of living for the suburban middle class and urban poor, but not for the rural populations or the wealthy.Now, there are lots of ways we can take this into account and tax intelligently to spread the burdens out based on ability to pay, but there simply will be wealth redistribution, particularly to the rural population, for any kind of efforts. It’s just absolutely unavoidable if you want to give them the same or comparable standard of living as suburban populations with a lower population density.But as it stands, just raising taxes would not provide enough revenue to significantly improve the rural standard of living (if placed only on rural populations, at least), raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for improved standards of living for any other population will justifiably feel to the wealthy like they’re subsidizing the standard of living increase for the rest of the population, and raising taxes just in general will most tangibly benefit the suburban middle class and urban poor.I’ll give you three guesses as to which of those two populations are most represented in Congress as Republicans and which two are represented as Democrats, and the first two guesses don’t count.You’ve read a long answer with no pictures. Here, enjoy a picture of a fuzzy kitten as a reward.Mostly Standard Addendum and Disclaimer: read this before you comment, goddammit.I welcome rational, reasoned debate on the merits with reliable, credible sources.But coming on here and calling me names, pissing and moaning about how biased I am, telling me to go push my commie values in Venezuela, et cetera and so forth, will result in a swift one-way frogmarch out the airlock. Doing the same to others will result in the same treatment.Essentially, act like an adult and don’t be a dick about it.Additionally, as aforementioned and because it bears repeating, first person that starts bitching about Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren and socialism and taxation is theft! gets the airlock. Walk down the road to Galt’s Gulch and you’re out the door. These are bad faith arguments that have been repeatedly debunked, and I am ornery enough not to put up with it today.If you want to discuss, rationally and with reliable, credible sources, what kinds of tax policy would actually have a meaningful impact on the standard of living, fine. I will even let you argue supply-side economics if you think you’ve got a line of reasoning that hasn’t already been proven wrong by the annals of history, so long as you’re making good faith arguments about it.Also, getting cute with me about my commenting rules and how my answer doesn’t follow my rules and blah, blah, whine, blah is getting old. Again, ornery enough today to not put up with it. Stay on topic or you’ll get to watch the debate from the outside.If you want to argue and you’re not sure how to not be a dick about it, just post a picture of a cute baby animal instead, all right? Your displeasure and disagreement will be duly noted. Pinkie swear.I’m done with warnings. If you have to consider whether or not you’re over the line, the answer is most likely yes. I’ll just delete your comment and probably block you, and frankly, I won’t lose a minute of sleep over it.Debate responsibly.Footnotes[1] Amazon.com: The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Chicago Studies in American Politics) eBook: Katherine J. Cramer: Kindle Store[2] Audit: Wisconsin DOT significantly underestimated highway project costs[3] Infrastructure spending: Which state is falling apart the worst?[4] School’s Closed. Forever.[5] Western Wisconsin Schools Grapple With Falling Status Of Teachers[6] Health Costs A Burden For Wisconsin's Middle-Income Families[7] Wisconsin suicide rate has increased 25 percent since '99, mirroring national problem[8] ER Visits For Opioid Overdose Double In Wisconsin[9] Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com[10] Rural hospitals retreat from delivering babies; small towns pay the price[11] Only 42% of Texas' rural hospitals will still deliver babies: A majority of rural hospitals in Texas are opting to discontinue delivery services as the number of births fall and the cost of providing the service rises, reports the Texas Tribune.[12] Another Thing Disappearing From Rural America: Maternal Care — ProPublica[13] Rural Hospitals Are Dying and Pregnant Women Are Paying the Price[14] Health Insurance Coverage in Small Towns and Rural America: The Role of Medicaid Expansion[15] The Role of Medicaid in Rural America[16] ACA Premiums Costlier in Rural America[17] Poorest Areas Have Missed Out on Boons of Recovery, Study Finds[18] The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats[19] Diving into the rich pool[20] http://www.aei.org/publication/cbo-study-shows-that-the-rich-dont-just-pay-a-fair-share-of-federal-taxes-they-pay-almost-everybodys-share/[21] High-income Americans pay most income taxes, but enough to be 'fair'?[22] Tax burden on the wealthy has trebled since the 1970s, Telegraph analysis shows[23] Wealth Inequality - Inequality.org[24] What is carried interest, and should it be taxed as capital gain?[25] The GOP wants to repeal the estate tax—here's how to know if that affects you[26] How rich people avoid taxes by parking money offshore (legally)[27] Opinion | How Corporations and the Wealthy Avoid Taxes (and How to Stop Them)[28] Paradise Papers Expose Rich And Famous Using Tax Havens  [29] What you need to know about the Senate's pass-through tax debate[30] The Definitive Guide to Who Rents and Who Buys in America[31] The Incredible Rise of Renting in the U.S.[32] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1017275?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents[33] Cost of Employer Insurance Growing Burden Middle-Income Families[34] Middle-Income Americans Take The Biggest Hit With Obamacare[35] Steep Premiums Challenge People Who Buy Health Insurance Without Subsidies

It was mostly the work of Robert W Young (an Anglo linguist) and William Morgan Sr (a Navajo linguist) who created the current Navajo writing system between 1935 and 1940. They published the first version in 1937. There were a number of competing systems before that but none had been solidified and none expressed things like tonality and nasalization or glotlalization well. Those are essential for recording Navajo. They created the best dictionary and a number of other books and articles as well. They also had a small newspaper named Ádahooníłígíí which was published from 1943 to 1957. Together they are widely considered to have made Navajo the best documented of any native American language.In July 1996, Robert Young and William Morgan were honored in the Navajo Nation Council Chambers for their work."(Robert Young and William Morgan) have made it possible to educate, communicate, inform, and entertain through the written Navajo language."--Navajo Tribal CouncilFor people that are not aware of it is it worth remembering or learning that most languages do not have commonly used writing systems. And most people the world and in most times have not been literate. Currently there are about 7,111 living languages. Just 3,995 have reportedly developed a writing system. In a large portion of those the writing system, while it may exist, often has few people who are literate and actually using the alphabet.Here is the Navajo system created by Robert Young and William Morgan. Below that is, first Robert Young’s history of modern Navajo orthography and literacy, and then following that, biographies of Morgan and YoungNavajo has two basic tones (low and high), plus two glides (rising and falling). High tone is marked with acute accent and low tone is unmarked. Falling and rising tones occur only with long vowels.Long vowels are represented by doubling the vowel.Vowel nasalization is marked with a cedilla (ą, ę, etc.)The fricatives [ʃ], [ʒ], [ɣ] are written sh, zh and gh respectively.The letter x is used instead of h if the previous letter is s or h to avoid confusion with sh and to avoid having two consecutive h.The glottal stop is marked with '.…..The fruitless effort to stamp out Indian languages and cultural systems finally came to a close on the heels of the Meriam Survey, conducted during the period 1926-28 by the Institute for Government Research. The report of the Meriam Committee (entitled The Problem of Indian Administration) recommended sweeping changes in Federal Indian policy and in the programs carried on by the Federal Government, including greater involvement of the Indian communities themselves in determining local needs and finding solutions to social and economic problems…… In 1933, and thereafter Indian languages and tribal cultural systems assumed a new status.Prerequisite to effective involvement of such Indian communities as the Navajo in social and economic programming was the development of improved media for communications among tribal members, involving not only the fostering of tribal governmental organizations, but the use of other available tools, including Indian languages.Accordingly, shortly after 1935, and especially after the appointment of Willard W. Beatty as Director of Indian Education, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took the first tentative steps in the direction of utilizing Indian languages in written form.Navajo had been written by anthropologists, linguists and missionaries for many years, in a variety of orthographies, for academic and religious purposes. Washington Matthews, the post surgeon at Fort Wingate in the 1880's collected many Navajo texts and, with the establishment of Navajo missions near the end of the 19th century, missionaries turned their attention to the Navajo language. The Franciscans published an Ethnological Dictionary of the Navajo Language in 1910 and a Vocabulary of the Navajo Language two years later, as well as catechisims and other religious material. In 1926, St. Michaels published a Manual of Navajo Grammar, and in the 1940's, a series entitled “Learning Navajo”. In addition, during the first three decades of the present century, various Protestant missions published religious materials and, in 1910, a small phrase book entitled “Dine Bizad”, written by G. F. Mitchell.In the mid-1930's Gladys Reichard carried on a series of classes, at Ganado, Arizona, to demonstrate the feasibility of teaching Navajos to read and write in their own language, utilizing her system of transcription. At about the same time Fr . Berard Haile of St. Michaels Mission was retained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prepare Navajo texts for broadcast over a Navajo language radio station that had been established at Window Rock. By that time, Fr. Berard was using an adaptation of the alphabetic system developed by Dr. Sapir.Interest in writing Navajo was widespread, but each interest group was adamant in declining to abandon its own system for that of a competitor. Consequently, about 1936, Dr. Beatty turned to the Smithsonian Institution for expertise in resolving the problem of establishing an independent system for the transcription of Navajo. Dr. John P. Harrington, a linguist in the Bureau of American Ethnology, was assigned the task of working out a simple, practical alphabet, and producing primer material for use in teaching written Navajo. However, although Harrington was an excellent phonetician, he had little previous experience in working with Athapaskan languages.In 1937, through the School of American Research in Santa Fe, Harrington was placed in contact with Robert W. Young who was then involved in field work on Navajo. Young was working with Adolph D. Bitanny, one of Gladys Reichard's students, in Albuquerque. In the fall of the same year Young went to Fort Wingate, New Mexico, where he continued language work with William Morgan. As a result of joint effort, Harrington, Young and Morgan developed an orthography acceptable to Bureau educators and produced several primers and work books — among them a reader entitled Shash Yaazh (Little Bear). These earliest efforts at materials production were never published and disposition of the manuscripts is unknown.In 1935, an interpreter's school was held at Fort Defiance, Arizona which resulted in a list of anatomical and medical terms, written in Navajo, and later published in mimeographed form under the title “Navajo Medical Dictionary.”In the spring of 1940, Edward A. Kennard and Robert W. Young were employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to produce reading and teaching materials in Navajo and other Indian languages, and to introduce literacy in native languages in the schools. Adolph Bitanny was retained, by Navajo Agency, as a teacher of literacy, and Willetto Antonio was employed, at the Phoenix Indian School, as a printer.A series by J. B. Enochs, consisting of a pre-primer, primer and reader, was translated into Navajo and published in 1940, under the title “Little Man's Family”. It was followed by a reader entitled “Who Wants To Be a Prairie Dog” , written by Ann Nolan Clark.In 1941, William Morgan joined the literacy group, and Dr. Kennard turned his attention to Sioux and Hopi. There was an urgent need for reading material and, in 1941, Young and Morgan produced a book, in mimeographed form, entitled “The World and its People”, in Navajo and English, with a glossary. This was followed by a four-volume series by Ann Nolan Clark, published bilingually in 1940-43, under the title “Little Herder” ( in Spring , Summer Autumn and Winter).In 1942, a new set of bilingual reading materials (Pre-primer, Primer and Coyote Tales) were prepared by Hildegard Thompson, based on Navajo stories and published as “The Navajo Series”.In 1943, Young and Morgan published “The Navajo Language”, and an account of the events leading up to World War II. The latter was a Navajo Translation of “War with the Axis”, by Charles McFarlane. The Navajo version was entitled Dii K’ad Ana’lgii Baa Hane’ . Additional teaching materials were produced, including a bilingual description of the Navajo alphabet, entitled “The ABC of Navajo”, republished in 1946 to include an abridged version of “Robinson Crusoe”, complete with glossary. The translation had been completed, about 1942, by Alice Gorman. And, in the same year, 1943, Young and Morgan began the publication of a monthly Navajo language newspaper called “Adahooniligii”.At the same period the Wycliffe Bible Translators, in Farmington, New Mexico began the translation of the Bible into Navajo. The Wycliffe Translators decided to use the "government" system of transcription in their work. Interested in teaching literacy as well they produced primers and teaching materials that were published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and made available generally to schools and literacy classes.Following the close of World War II, the Navajo newspaper was continued and enlarged. The Gallup Independent gave used cartoon matrices for publication, with Navajo legends, in Adahooniligii, and an English summary of each article was added.The post war period was fraught with many economic problems on the Reservation and interest grew in devising and carrying out a resources development plan. The evaluation of resource potential, as presented to the Tribal Council, was translated into Navajo, published in Adahooniligii and republished in reprint form for continuing distribution, in 1947. At the same time, to satisfy popular curiosity, the Navajo Treaty of 1868 was translated and published.During the period 1947-50, the Tribal government was under heavy pressure from the Secretary of the Interior to revise the existing grazing regulations for the Navajo Reservation, or to adopt the General Grazing Regulations of the Department of the Interior. Complex and legalistic as they were, people in the communities could not understand the provisions of these documents, nor could interpreters explain them satisfactorily on an extemporaneous basis. They were translated into written Navajo, published in the Navajo newspaper and in reprint form, and widely used as the basis for discussions at a community level throughout the Navajo Country.At the same time the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Bill was in the process of drafting by Congress. it too was translated, with explanations of each section, and published in Navajo. A number of Navajo leaders and old people recorded historical narratives on Soundscriber disks, for transcription and publication in the newspaper. Of these, the best were subsequently assembled and republished in “The Navajo Historical Series”, including three separate books. In republished form, they became available during the period 1949-52 (“The Ramah Navajos” , “The Trouble at Round Rock” and “Selections from Navajo History”). In 1948, Young and Morgan published a document entitled “The Function and Signification of Certain Navajo Particles” and, in 1951 a supplement to “The Navajo Language” was published, under the title “Vocabulary of Colloquial Navajo.” In 1950, a Navajo translation of the “Revised Election Procedure for the Tribal Council” was made available to the Navajo public.During the early 1950's adult literacy classes were continued, by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and by mission groups, and the Bureau continued to cooperate with the Wycliffe Bible Translators in the production of primers, charts and teaching materials. These included a new series composed of a preprimer, primer and reader, a brochure on how to find a job (“Naanish Hanishta”), and a book on learning English, all authored by the Wycliffe Translators.In 1953, a description of the “Special Five Year Program” (an accelerated educational program for Navajo young people whose education had been interrupted by the war or who for other reasons had not progressed far in school), was published. In 1956, a new set of bilingual materials by Cecil S. King and Marian Nez was published under the title “Navajo New World Readers”, and in 1958 Wall and Morgan published a “Navajo-English Dictionary.”Finally, in 1957, in the face of great stress on the teaching and learning of English, the publication of Adahooniligii was discontinued, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs turned its attention away from the use of written Navajo.In the 1960's however, many young Navajos awakened to the realization that knowledge of the Tribal language and cultural heritage — and with it their identity as Navajos — were rapidly slipping away. This realization, often voiced by young people at Tribal Youth Conferences in the early years of the decade, led to a reawakening of interest in the Navajo language and the traditional culture. Since that time the Rough Rock Demonstration School, the Navajo Community College, the Navajo Reading Study, the University of New Mexico and Northern Arizona University have taken an active interest in the study of Navajo language and culture, and in the promotion of written Navajo. New reading materials are being produced, in Navajo, and bilingual education is once again finding support in the Reservation schools.”Full text of "ERIC ED068229: Written Navajo: A Brief History. Navajo Reading Study Progress Report No. 19."Robert Young (1912 –2007) was born in Chicago. He got degree from the University of Illinois in 1935. He learned Nahuatl and Spanish from Mexican immigrant railroad workers. He moved to New Mexico and entered grad school in Anthropology. He worked with a fellow grad student who was Navajo named Adolph Dodge Bitanny to try to learn Navajo.He met William Morgan while he doing field work and they were both working at the Southwestern Range and Sheepbreeding Laboratory in Fort Wingate, New Mexico. He counted sheep's hair under a microscope. He needed work in the Depression while in grad school. He lived in a tent. Morgan and Young began working on Navajo grammar in their spare time.He married Olga Maoloni Young in 1939. In 1940, he and Morgan were hired by the BIA as language specialists. The created programs to teach Navajo literacy and wrote many books and papers. They created and ran Ádahooníłígíí a Navajo-language monthly newspaper from 1943 to 1957. Shortly after that the Navajo Times began publication. It continues as the Navajo Nation's main print-medium to this day.He was in the Marine Corps in World War II in Phoenix. The Marines used his abilities to help in the testing and selection of Navajo “Code Talkers.”He became an adjunct linguistics professor at the University of New Mexico when he retired from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1971. He taught Navajo language classes and was co-director of the Navajo Reading Study. One of the first typewriters that could adequately record the Navajo language was built for him. In the nineteen-seventies, a Navajo font was released for the IBM Selectric, an electric typewriter. Navajo fonts are now available for download in multiple typefaces: Times New Roman, Verdana, and Lucida Sans.A scholarship was created in his name to support students in the Department of Linguistics who are engaged in the study of Native American Linguistics.. The University of New MexicoDr William Morgan Sr (1917-2001) was born in a hooghan in Red Rock near Gallup NM. He was Tsi'naajinii clan (Black Streak Wood). He was born for Haltsooi clan, (Meadow People clan).He went to boarding school at Tohatchie at age eight. He spoke only Navajo at the time. He was there for nine months a year with no break to go home. He went to Fort Wingate High School and gradated in 193six.He got a job at Southwestern Range and Sheepbreeding Laboratory working to improve breeds. In 1940, he and Young were hired by the BIA as language specialists. They wrote books and papers together. He married Desbah Dickson Morgan.In the late 1950s he worked with the Cornell university Medical College to develop Navajo terms for medicine. He was an interpreter and instructor of the Navajo language for Cornell University, University of New Mexico and Navajo Community College. He was the designer of the logo for the Navajo Community College.He died at age 85. He had ten children, 19 grandkids and 19 great grandkids.Dr William Morgan and Tom Watson, a medicine man, examining objects to be included in an exhibit at the Navajo Tribal MuseumWilliam Morgan (1917-2001): Navajo Linguist