Stop subsidizing inequality

We frequently hear the claim from conservatives that liberals are hostile to religion. Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly points out a few fallacies of that claim:

* Why did Obama make a big deal of becoming a Christian during his 2008 campaign?

* Where are all the atheist Democrats running for Congress?

Which means liberals aren't hostile to Christianity, their hostile to the brand of Christianity conservatives are proclaiming. That leaves one more question: Is the conservative faith so weak it can't survive without state support?




Katrina vanden Heuvel, in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, says we should stop subsidizing income inequality. She reports of states taking action because Congress is silent on the issue. The hotbed of action appears to be California. A bill in the legislature would have the state tax agency compute the pay ratio between the CEO and typical workers. If the ratio is under 100 the company gets a tax break. If over, the tax rate would increase. A voter initiative would cap the salaries of executives at not-for-profit hospitals (I can see this one backfiring -- hospitals would switch to being for-profit). In Massachusetts, nurses are pushing a ballot initiative to limit hospital executive pay to 100 times their lowest paid workers. And in Rhode Island a proposed bill says there would be a preference for state contracts to go to those companies where the top-to-bottom pay ratio is only 32. Activists are finding their voices are louder at the state level. More initiatives will come.