2019 in Quotes: 10 Things People Told Us

“I think we just like the idea of powerful people. We like the idea of a king. We like the idea of these celebrities that get treated like kings. Why did the Bushes keep getting elected to office? Why did the Kennedys keep getting elected to office after several of them did pretty terrible things? We like the idea that some people’s blood is more special than ours.” — Film director Adam McKay (“Dick Cheney and the Imperial Presidency”)

“We need to go back to the time when people moved to California because of our public education system. Now they move out because of it.” –LAUSD Board Member Jackie Goldberg (“The Coming War to Save Public Education”)

“The only thing I think that would cause us to lose in this moment, where we should be poised for great victory, is if the American people can’t really tell the Democratic Party apart from the Republican Party, and that’s been the case in way too many elections. But we have a chance here to be uncompromising and to be clear. And it starts with addressing income inequality.” — NY Mayor Bill de Blasio (“No Apologies: Economic Inequality, 2020 and the Amazon Deal”)

“The U.S. is the most extreme case of a country that used to have perhaps the most progressive system in the world but now has this particularly regressive tax system.” — French economist Gabriel Zucman (“Tax Policies Fuel Wealth Inequality”)

“The sobering statistic that we have to never forget is that about half of this nation’s income is earned by about three percent of our wage earners. And the other half is earned by 97 percent of our wage earners.” — Business leader Leo Hindery (“Trump’s ‘Economic Miracle’ Is a Mirage”)

“Wealth taxes and taxing the rich would address the destabilizing inequality that we are currently facing. If we do not address this crisis, we are heading for civil unrest.” Patriotic Millionaire activist Morris Pearl  (“Soak the Rich, But How?”)