Monday, July 9, 2018

Born on Third Base #2

Towards the end of the book, Collins raises an interesting point about the morality behind charitable giving from the wealthy. He describes a wealthy auction event that he attended in Massachusetts, which led to him wondering about a troubling trend he was noticing - the use of charitable funds to compound the existing advantages of the wealthy. Collins believes that tax-deductible giving should not worsen existing inequalities, but reduce them. By reducing their state and federal tax bills with donations to their children's schools, these wealthy individuals are worsening the gap, which is an extremely overlooked issue in our country.

Collins lists a few ideas he has that could help reduce the inequality gap. First, he thinks that raising minimum wage/health care and having a guaranteed minimum income would help level the playing field. He also thinks we should have fairer tax policies so that competing companies are taxed at the same rates. One of the biggest solutions that Collins suggested was preventing the wealthy from having unfair political influence, which currently disenfranchises millions of voters. I definitely agree with this; bribery needs to be fully removed from our government in order for the inequality gap to shrink. Collins truly has a special mind and I found myself agreeing with the majority of his ideas.

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