This is how much average Americans will pay for Trump’s tax cuts for the 1 Percent

  On the heels of their humiliating health care debacle, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are stepping up efforts to push a tax plan designed to benefit the wealthy. The plan makes vague and unspecific overtures when it comes to provisions that could benefit working- and middle-class taxpayers, but it is crystal clear about the benefits it would bestow on rich individuals and wealthy corporations.

  For example, the plan removes taxes on extremely wealthy estates, slashes the top income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, and abolishes the alternative minimum tax, which ensures that higher-income households—which are often able to take advantage of lucrative deductions and credits—contribute at least some modicum of taxes. It also gives a special low tax rate to owners of pass-through businesses, who are already able to avoid corporate taxes by instead paying personal tax rates on their portion of the businesses’ profits, allowing them a lower effective tax rate. All of these provisions would benefit the wealthiest Americans, including Trump himself.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Why Occupy failed

  The Occupy movement rose over the desperate and disjointed American political landscape like a colossus in the late summer and early fall of 2011.

  From Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan--the home base of Occupy Wall Street--the movement spread to thousands of cities in America, as well as to foreign countries such as Greece, Germany, and Brazil.

  By September 2011, the movement seemed to be well on its way to making a permanent change in the American political narrative, with previously-unheard phrases like 'the 99 percent' becoming household terms and renewed scrutiny being placed on the extraordinary wealth of the top one percent. News coverage alone was sufficient to keep the movement at the forefront of Americans' political brains.