Assignment Week 2

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/17/one-state-raised-taxes-the-other-cut-them-guess-which-one-is-in-recession/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories-2_wb-taxes-8am-stream%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

In Tankersley and Ehrenfreund's article, "The interesting thing that happened when Kansas cut taxes and California hiked them", the authors try to advocate for increase taxes of the rich by introducing an anecdote regarding California's success upon raising the taxes of the wealthy.  He magnifies the success of the California wealth taxes by comparing it to that of complete opposite, and by proving that this opposite was a failure. This opposite is referring to Kansas who, as a government, raised taxes on the poor, and lowered taxes on the rich. From a conservative standpoint, he adds, this is supported. They talk about how California's economy grew by 4.1 percent in 2015, while Kansas was a lousy 0.2 percent in 2015. In addition, the authors provide a link to another website demonstrating how California did "just fine" after the tax raises, but provide no such link for Kansas' success or failure. They do this to prevent reader from gaining a different perspective of Kansas than the one they present, one of a failure. They do however, present the article revealing Kansas' tax changes a year ago, which provides more statistics regarding the unfairness the Kansas lower class men are facing.  Although the claim that taxes for the wealthy should be raised isn't directly stated, it can be inferred through viewing the article from a rhetorical standpoint. From a rhetorical standpoint, the authors could have simply stated the two cases in two different articles. They had no reason to contrast the two if they had no bias. The only reason the author contrasts the two is to emphasize the fact that plan A was successful, but its opposite wasn't. This emphasis can get readers to be strongly persuaded into thinking that the Conservative approach to taxes would be unsuccessful, hurting the Republican party in the long run. While we cannot tell from article whether the authors are trying to hurt the Republican party or simply trying to highlight an unjust government law, the authors are successful in convincing readers that taxes toward the wealthy are more heavily preferred than taxing the lower class.