Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The Inauguration of Income Inequality Politics
The Inauguration of Income Inequality Politics
Jan 14, 2026 8:54 PM

One of the key words at Bill de Blasio’s inauguration as New York City’s mayor was “inequality.” The politics of e inequality were pervasive in the remarks of former President Bill Clinton, who swore de Blasio into office, as well as the prayer of the Rev. Fred Lucas, a Sanitation Department chaplain, who prayed during the invocation for New Yorkers to be emancipated from ‘the plantation called New York City.’

e inequality as evidence of an unjust society may the be new platform position of the Democrats. Across the country it appears the party is moving away from the more centrist ideology of the Clintons to the more 1912 mitments of New York’s new mayor. Nevertheless, de Blasio continues to signal a new era of politics of the Big Apple,

Here are a few highlights from his inaugural address outlining his plan to improve New York City:

We will require big developers to build more affordable housing. We’ll fight to stem the tide of hospital closures. And we’ll munity health centers into neighborhoods in need, so that New Yorkers see our city not as the exclusive domain of the One Percent, but a place where everyday people can afford to live, work, and raise a family.

de Blasio seeks to pass a plan where the very wealthy will be forced to pay more to fund public childcare programs:

We will ask the very wealthy to pay a little more in taxes so that we can offer full-day universal pre-K and after-school programs for every middle school student. And when we say “a little more,” we can rightly emphasize the “little.”

Those earning between $500,000 and one million dollars a year, for instance, would see their taxes increase by an average of $973 a year. That’s less than three bucks a day – about the cost of a small soy latte at your local Starbucks.

Think about it. A 5-year tax on the wealthiest among us – with every dollar dedicated to pre-K and after-school. Asking those at the top to help our kids get on the right path and stay there. That’s our mission. And on that, we will not wait. We will do it now.

Moreover, in New York’s immediate future the city’s government will mitted to addressing social “injustice” and “inequality,” says de Blasio:

A city that fights injustice and inequality — not just because it honors our values, but because it strengthens our people. A city of five boroughs — all created equal. Black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, old, young, rich, middle class, and poor. A city that remembers our responsibility to each other — mon cause — is to leave no New Yorker behind.

Only time will tell how much de Blasio’s progressivist vision will impact the city or if any of his ideas are implemented. But some of those who are more interested than liberty than redistribution probably wish that de Blasio would exchange mitments for those that intend New York City to be a place when men and women, regardless of their social status and background, know and experience that they are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these, for all New Yorkers, are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
How Ethiopia’s churches are reviving forests and restoring biodiversity
During Ethiopia’s bout munism in the 1970s and 1980s, the government nationalized the land and converted much of it for agriculture, leaving only 5% of the country’s forests—a 45% decrease from the beginning of the century. Now, thanks to a growing partnership between ecologists and the country’s Tewahedo churches, biodiversity is making eback. “If you see a forest in Ethiopia, you know there is very likely to be a church in the middle,” writes Alison Abbott in Nature. “…These small...
‘Pay what you can afford’ runs Panera out of bread
Panera has announced that it will close the last of its charitable stores, which allowed people to pay whatever they wished for a meal, because it was costing too much dough. The Boston store will shut its doors permanently this Friday, February 15. “Panera Cares” were indistinguishable from other Panera eateries in their branding, menu, or furnishings, except they announced that no one would be turned away if they did not pay one cent of the “suggested prices.” Those who...
Understanding the aggregate demand curve
Note: This is post #110 in a weekly video series on basic economics. A concept that can help us understand business fluctuation is the aggregate demand–aggregate supplymodel, or AD-AS model.The aggregate demand curve shows us all of the binations of inflation and real growth that are consistent with a specified rate of spending growth. In the video by Marginal Revolution University,Alex Tabarrok explains howthe aggregate demand curve show us all of the binations of inflation and real growth that are...
Camille Paglia: The fearless feminist
True thinkers are those capable of provoking in their readers and listeners the ability to think outside of ordinary life, to look beyond the merely conventional, and to understand that tensions, contradictions, and nuances are part of the process of growing. Camille Paglia gets it all and much more in the new collection of her essays in Provocations (Pantheon, 2018), a title that could not have been better chosen. Paglia is a feminist, atheist, and lesbian arts professor, sympathetic to...
Is only some insensitivity wrong?
Fox News and the Washington Post reported that actor Rob Lowe came under fire last week for making a joke on Twitter that poked fun at Senator Elizabeth Warren and her claims of Native American ancestry. After Senator Warren declared her candidacy for President, Lowe tweeted, Lowe was immediately scolded by fellow actors like Mark Hamill and journalist Soledad O’Brien. Lowe deleted the tweet with a half-hearted apology, and lamented people’s “inability to laugh at anything” anymore Critics lambasted Lowe...
The false promise of an ‘ultramillionaire’ tax
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is running for president in 2020, and she has gained attention for proposing an “ultramillionaire” tax: a 2 percent tax on households with a net worth over $50 million and an additional 1 percent on households worth over $1 billion. Warren’s proposal has more popular support than Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) proposal to raise the marginal e tax rate on top earners to 70 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. Indeed, Warren’s proposal has support among a majority of...
Acton Line: Love and economics; Ending poverty and saving farms
On this episode of Acton Line, producer Caroline Roberts speaks with Sarah Estelle, professor of economics at Hope College. Estelle breaks down mon misconceptions about economics and shares what our love for those around us has to do with economics. Register for the ing lunch and lecture event at the Acton Institute on February 14, to hear Estelle share more about integrating sound economics with a Christian perspective. After that, Acton’sPoverty Initiatives Manager, Andrew Vanderput, speaks with Scott Sabin, the...
Crushing the poor: agricultural tariffs and subsidies
There are a lot of campaigns and organizations dedicated to alleviating extreme poverty found in the developing world. These same groups advocate for the provision of what the material poor often lack: clean water, decent housing, financial capital, nutrition, etc. But this deficit of material goods, what we typically call “poverty,” is symptomatic of larger problems. People are not poor because they lack “stuff.” People are poor mainly because they do not have access to secure property rights, the rule...
Democrats support Green New Deal while Thomas Piketty finds it problematic
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey’s proposed Green New Deal is getting a lot of attention these days. Democratic Presidential hopefuls Cory Booker,Kirsten Gillibrand,Kamala Harris, andElizabeth Warren are all supporters, as is Senator Bernie Sanders. Former Greek Minister of Finance and Economist Yanis Varoufakis has been aggressively promoting his own vision of a Green New Deal for Europe. Many of the policy proposals and programs are similar and so are the proposed methods of funding: The great advantage of...
Alejandro Chafuen in Forbes: Juan Bautista Alberdi and freedom in Latin America
Though certainly not well known in North America, Juan Bautista Alberdi is a towering figure in the history of Argentina. He was a major influence on the Argentine constitution and was an intellectual force in 19th-century South America. He was an adherent of classical liberal views but also a convinced Christian. His Christianity has at times been overlooked—the New Catholic Encyclopedia, for instance, devotes an entire page to Alberdi but gives no mention of his Christianity or his views on...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved