1. What is the main idea of Thomas Sowell’s commentary?

2. The purpose of an editorial/commentary is to explain, persuade, warn, criticize, entertain, praise, exhort or answer. What do you think is the purpose of Dr. Sowell’s commentary? Explain your answer.

3. Which of the following facts stated by Thomas Sowell did you already know?

a) A recent article in the New York Times says that raising the tax rate on the top one percent of income earners to 40 percent would generate “about $157 billion” a year in additional tax revenue for the government. This ignores mountains of evidence…showing that raising tax rates does not automatically mean raising tax revenues — and has often actually led to falling tax revenues.

b) When the state of Maryland raised its tax rate on people with incomes of a million dollars a year or more, the number of such people living in Maryland fell from nearly 8,000 to fewer than 6,000. Although it had been projected that the tax revenue collected from such people in Maryland would rise by $106 million, instead these revenues FELL by $257 million.

c) …There have been some reductions in high tax rates that brought in more tax revenues at the lower rates. This happened as far back as the Coolidge administration in the 1920s. It also happened in the Kennedy administration in the 1960s, the Reagan administration in the 1980s and most recently in the Bush 43 administration.