My Biggest Writing Mistake (So Far)

How I unintentionally instigated class warfare on Medium.

Photo by **Brett Jordan** from **Pexels**

Several weeks ago, I wrote a story entitled, “Why the Middle Class Hates the Poor”. There were several problems with the story, and it ended up further polarizing my readers.

The reaction to the story made me pull it from the Money. Daily. publication and completely hide it in Medium.

The story was pulled from the publication.
All tags were removed.
The story was unlisted, and therefore also unmetered.
The SEO title could not be changed, but I removed the SEO description.
An introduction prior to the article links to this story.

It now has the title of Archived Story #1, can only be accessed by a direct link, and will solely be used as an example of how words really do matter.

What I Intended

When I started writing this story, I wanted to see if the wealthiest Americans actually do pay higher taxes. There have been hundreds of articles about how the rich use legal tax breaks and illegal tax shelters to reduce their taxable income, and they made me curious.

I started doing some research, and come to find out, there have been numerous government, academic, not-for-profit, and private sector studies showing that the rich, as a collective, do pay a higher federal tax rate.

My original question had been answered, so I wasn’t going to rewrite it. However, when perusing the data, I saw that, while tax rates increased steadily as you worked your way up in income, there was a big jump in tax rates when going from the poor (bottom 50% in income) to the middle class (26%-50% in income).

I made a few tables and, indeed, moving from the bottom to the middle class saw your tax rate quadruple while income only doubled.

There were several thoughts that went through my mind, but the one I decided to go with was the concept that the middle class gets screwed by paying all of the taxes; all the while the poor get help that is funded by taxpayer dollars and simultaneously pay so little on what income they do earn.

Why did I choose this topic instead of the myriad others available?

I’m not sure.

The most probable explanation is that my working-poor education of the economy consisted of vilifying the rich “because they only got that money by cheating the system” and chiding the poor for “not putting their nose to the grindstone and finding a damn job.”

I’ve had to address both of those blunt attitudes in my adult life, replacing them with the deserved and required nuance that begets a country and economy of our size.

Unfortunately, when writing this article, that black and white delineation from my childhood came crashing down and onto the screen.

I’ll discuss why I decided to publish the article at the end of this explanation, but first, let’s discuss the actual content.

What I Wrote (And What I Should Have Written)

While the article as a whole is kind of a disaster, there are a few key sentences that are embarrassing and outright dangerous if weaponized. Let’s begin.

“The Rich Pay Their Fair Share”

I’m grimacing while writing this, as that phrase is normally like nails on a chalkboard when I hear them in conversation.

Here is the full paragraph.

The short answer is yes, the rich do pay their fair share. They pay taxes at a higher rate than the lower brackets, and they contribute the most tax money per capita to the federal budget.

Let the self-flagellation begin.

There’s so much wrong here, it’s difficult to know where to start.

First, I do not believe that the rich pay their fair share.

Yes, the numbers show that they pay more than the lower income brackets, but it is nowhere near enough. Especially given today’s concentration of wealth in just a small percentage of the population.

There were several comments correctly pointing out that even with the higher percentage tax brackets, the absolute amount of money the rich still keep is much larger than the lower income brackets. Like, orders of magnitude higher.

For example, the person who earns $400,000 and is effectively paying 25% of his income still has $300,000 in income.

On the other hand, the person earning $40,000 and is paying an effective rate of 10% still only has $36,000 in income.

That difference is light years apart.

Second, and I’m going to get more political than economic here, the current top marginal tax brackets are among the lowest in modern (post-WWII) history.

The MAGA crowd loves to think of the 1950’s as the best time in American history. The psychology of idolizing your childhood aside, the economics of the 50’s weren’t too bad.

The middle class was larger and families could subsist on a single income…white families, that is. And both the income and wealth gaps were much smaller.

What they don’t include in their propaganda is that the top marginal tax rate in 1952, the same year Eisenhower (the last, true Republican) took office, was 92%, as we were trying to pay off the debt incurred during the war.

Some studies show that the effective tax rate during that time was only 40%-45%, but that’s a damn sight better than the current 25.4%.

In short, the rich, who are wealthier than ever, pay fewer taxes than ever, while the US drives up larger deficits than ever.

This situation is not fair.

“The Middle Class Resents the Poor”

…when moving from the Bottom 50% to the 26%-50% bracket. In that move, your tax rate increases 105%.

And financially that might make sense, given that you are hopefully above the poverty line and moving on up in life. But psychologically, it’s a knockout punch, building resentment to those who earn far less.

I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking (or even if I was thinking at all) when I wrote this, but this just…sucks.

Everything about it smacks of classism, sexism, racism, and every other kind of negative “-ism” that exists.

The ironic thing is that I don’t even feel this way.

So the poor pay lower taxes. So what! They’re fucking poor, and they need all the money they can get their hands on.

I was raised in a working poor household, so why would I resent the poor for taking advantage of any program or policy out there that would help them keep as much take-home pay as possible?

As I read over this section, I’m dumbfounded that I let myself publish this, as it’s the antithesis of everything espoused by Saint George (Carlin, that is).

He has a great piece about the fact that the rich use the poor to scare the middle class, and my wife will attest that faithfully repeat that bit at least once a year.

The most egregious part of this whole thing is that I allowed myself to be duped into exploiting the differences between the poor and middle class, taking attention away from the real inequality issues in our country.

“Our Tax System is Progressive”

This mistake is kind of a technicality, but also kind of obvious.

Technically, our federal income tax system is progressive, both in theory and in effect. The term “progressive” in this sense means that the more money you make the higher percent of taxes you pay.

I used the statistical/mathematical/technical definition of “progressive.”

My (easily avoidable) mistake was not remembering that the term progressive has a political overtone, which is roundly defined as prioritizing the needs of the masses through social reform, oftentimes using the vehicle of higher taxes on the wealthy.

Using this definition, our tax system is nowhere near progressive.

The wealthy have lobbied Congress for decades to lower the tax brackets and create loopholes in the tax code to help minimize their tax burden, which is one of many causes of the income and wealth gaps we see today.

Why I Published With So Many Mistakes

If I had waited to publish this article just for a couple of days, it would have given me the time to reread it, edit out the inanity, and publish something that I would have been proud of.

Instead, I did a quick once-over, called it good enough, and sent it out to the interwebs.

But why?

The short answer is that I was leaning into the idea that it is better to frequently publish not-so-great work than take months to write that one perfect article.

This notion is embodied in a quote by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, who once said, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

My default is to create something then edit for days or weeks, polishing it into the best “thing” I possibly can to communicate my ideas. The problem with this approach is the schedule…it takes days or weeks.

My writing was only getting modestly better, and my income was varied wildly. To overcome this tendency to perfect and polish, I swung hard to the other side and started publishing one article every weekday, forcing myself to accept my imperfect writing.

As a result, when I hit “Publish”, I wasn’t embarrassed by this article, as I didn’t even give it enough review to be embarrassed. I was on to the next article, trying to be a better writer by writing, but leaving out almost all of the editing.

Over the weeks that followed, I have read and reread that article and have been plenty embarrassed.

My embarrassment wasn’t the data I used or the conclusions I came to, although my conclusions were plenty far off, overly broad, and presumptuous.

No, my embarrassment comes from the fact that this article helped increase the already monstrous political and ideological divide we are currently experiencing in America.

Based on the comments I received, my writing either fortified the position that the poor really are just takers and are not worthy of either empathy or assistance, or it buttressed the idea that I’m just a mouthpiece for the rich.

My article lacked nuance and compassion.

But mostly it lacked editing and common sense.

And that is why I decided to mothball the thing, stop it from making any more money from fanning the flames of class warfare, and use it as an example of just how powerful words can be.

I’m still writing an article every day, but I’ve also added a 15 minute sanity check before hitting the Publish button so I don’t sound like a complete jackass. At least, not as often.

Many Thanks for the Responses

My original story had many responses, and I am grateful for the feedback. It’s difficult to hear that something you created a) isn’t all that great and b) is achieving the exact opposite thing you intended.

I appreciate the time that folks spent writing their truth as a response to my story, especially Tamara A, Catherine Scott Arne, MXM, Traverse Davies, and Enzo for their thoughtful, well written responses.

The biggest thanks goes out to my wife, Amelia Grant.

The idea of addressing my mistakes had been stewing in my head for a while, but my hour long conversation with her galvanized the need for action. She was a sounding board as I tried to find my voice while penning this article, and her insight was a tremendous help.

Thank you all!

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