Those who protest the system are often told they should work within it–after doing so for years and being ignored or suppressed.

The following letter has just been sent to The New York Times. It has 60 signatories, including six Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists who resent the Times policy on spec work and substandard pay rates.

The origin of this letter was organic. Editorial cartoonists were discussing what to do in response to the Times’ announcement that it plans to ask scores of cartoonists to submit cartoons on spec, paying only one lucky winner—and then only the below-market rate of $250. The effective pay rate works out to a few cents per hour on average. Is this a newspaper, or the Triangle Waistshirt factory?

I suggested that the AAEC send out a letter along the following lines. One cartoonist after another began saying “I’ll sign that,” and here we are–sending out the letter that I drafted. Please note that this is not an official AAEC communiqué but rather an expression of the individual sentiments of the 60 signatories.

We hope that this will help to educate educators about the pernicious practice of spec work and phony “contests.”

Very truly yours,
Ted Rall

======================================

TEXT OF LETTER FOLLOWS:

Ms. Aviva Michaelov
Art Direction, Graphic and Web Design
The Sunday Review
New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York NY 10018

Dear Aviva:

While we appreciate and applaud your move to add more cartoons to the Sunday Review, we are concerned about your announced submission (no pun intended) policy and payment.

The current proposal has the effect of putting scores of cartoonists to work every week. But only one will have a (small) chance to be published. Like an old-fashioned “shape up” of longshoremen, this is demoralizing and will likely lead to a diminished number and quality of submissions over time. This works neither for the cartoonists nor for The Times. We suggest that you either commission cartoonists whose work you like directly, or return to the previous approach of running syndicated material which do not require additional work on the part of editorial cartoonists who are struggling mightily in the current economic environment.

Furthermore, the proposed payment is extremely low given the low chances of publication, the requirement that an artist clear his or her Friday schedule, and–most of all–the huge circulation of The New York Times, the largest newspaper in the United States. Although The New York Times in the past has paid only $50 for a reprint of syndicated cartoons, the market standard for a reprint for a newspaper of your size is $250. You are offering this $250 now for original content. An original cartoon for The Times should pay closer to $1500 to $2000. And the rate should be even higher if you maintain the New Yorker-style submission policy, to which many cartoonists have long objected and boycotted.

It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel here. There are long-established norms for submission and payment for cartoons in the newspaper industry that have functioned well and would work well for you going forward. We hope you will consider them.

Signed February 9, 2012 by the following cartoonists:

Kirk Anderson
Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle*
Robert Ariail, Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, SC)
Steve Artley
John Auchter, MLive Media Group
Pat Bagley, Salt Lake City Tribune
Richard Bartholomew, Artizans Syndicate
Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner
Charles Beyl, Sunday News (Lancaster, PA)
John Branch, North America Syndicate
Steve Breen, San Diego Union-Tribune*
Daryl Cagle, msnbc.com
Tim Campbell, Current Publishing
Cameron Cardow (CAM), Ottawa Citizen
J.D. Crowe, Mobile (AL) Press-Register
Matt Davies, Tribune Media Services*
John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Brian Duffy, King Features Syndicate
Tim Eagan, Deep Cover
Bob Englehart, Hartford Courant
Paul Fell
David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star
Garrincha, El Nuevo Herald
Bob Gorrell, Creators Syndicate
Phil Hands, Wisconsin State Journal
Roger Harvell
Joe Heller, Green Bay (WI) Press-Gazette
Jack Higgins, Chicago Sun-Times
Keith Knight, The K Chronicles/The Knight Life
Jeff Koterba, Omaha World-Herald
Jay Lamm, The Franklin Times
Chan Lowe, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Jimmy Margulies, The Record (NJ)
R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle (GA)
Stephanie McMillan, Universal Press Syndicate
Mike Keefe, Denver Post*
Angelo Lopez, Philippines Today
Jim Morin, Miami Herald
Jack Ohman, The Oregonian
Jeff Parker, Florida Today
Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader*
Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News*
Milt Priggee
Ted Rall, Universal Press Syndicate
Rob Rogers, Pittburgh Post-Gazette
V. C. Rogers, The Independent Weekly (Durham, NC)
Marshall Ramsey, Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger
Jen Sorensen, Slowpoke
Scott Stantis, Chicago Tribune
Ed Stein
Tom Stiglich, Journal-Register Newspapers
Dana Summers, Orlando Sentinel
Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe
Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Daily News*
Karl Wimer, Denver Business Journal
Matt Wuerker, The Politico
Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News

*Asterisk indicates winner of the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning

The US State Department announces that it has a fleet of drone planes. What next?

Don’t wait until later–now is the best time to arrange for me to come to your city this summer or fall. If you can arrange a venue (your cousin’s garage doesn’t count), get in touch and let’s make it happen!

And if you live in the Northwest, mark your calendar!

Friday, June 1, 2012
7:30-10:30 pm
Live Wire Radio
The Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta Street
Portland, Oregon 97211

Saturday, June 2, 2012
7:00 pm
Elliot Bay Bookstore
1521 10th Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98122

Sunday, June 3, 2012
2:00 pm
Village Books
1200 11th Street
Bellingham, Washington 98225

Monday, June 4, 2012
7:00 pm
Kings Bookstore
218 Saint Helens Avenue
Tacoma, Washington 98402

The country is broke! Now it’s time for everyone, rich and poor, to roll up their sleeves (if they have any) and pitch in.

From a men’s room door.

Here was the poll:

“I’d like to see Ted Rall added to the DK4 comics lineup”

Results:
Yes
83% 420 votes

No
16% 86 votes

Total 506 votes

They’re still adding comics. Not me. Apparently I’m too critical of Obama. DK owner Markos tweeted today about my being blackballed: “Feeling entitled much?”

It’s not about me, Markos. It’s about your readers.

What is this, a Florida election?

Friday, June 1, 2012
7:30-10:30 pm
Live Wire Radio
The Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta Street
Portland, Oregon 97211

If you’d like me to come to your city and can arrange–and promote–an appearance, now is a good time to let me know.

Reacting to and attempting to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement, President Obama used his 2012 State of the Union address to discuss what he now calls “the defining issue of our time”—the growing gap between rich and poor.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” Obama said. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

No doubt, the long-term trend toward income inequality is a major flaw of the capitalist system. From 1980 to 2005 more than 80 percent in the gain in Americans’ incomes went to the top one percent. This staggering disparity between the haves and have-nots has created a permanent underclass of underemployed, undereducated and alienated people who often turn to crime for survival and social status. Aggregation of wealth into fewer hands has shrunk the size of the U.S. market for consumer goods, prolonging and deepening the depression.

How can we make the system fairer?

Liberals are calling for a more progressive income tax: i.e., raise taxes on the rich. Obama says he’d like to slap a minimum federal income tax of 30 percent on individuals earning more than $1 million a year.

Soaking the rich would obviously be fair. GOP frontrunner/corporate layoff sleazebag Mitt Romney earned $59,500 a day in 2010—and paid half the effective tax rate (13.9 percent) of that paid by a family of four earning $59,500 a year.

Fair, sure. But would it work? Would increasing taxes on the wealthy do much to close the gap between rich and poor—to level the economic playing field?

Probably not.

From FDR through Jimmy Carter it was an article of faith among liberals that higher taxes on the rich would result in lower taxes on the poor and working class. This was because the Republican Party consistently pushed for a balanced budget. Tax income was tied to expenditures, which were more or less fixed—and thus a zero-sum game.

That period from 1933 to 1980 was also the era of the New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society social and anti-poverty programs, such as Social Security, the G.I. Bill, college grants and welfare. These government handouts helped mitigate hard times, gave life-changing educational opportunities that allowed class mobility, closing the gap between despair and hope for tens of millions of Americans. As the list of social programs grew, so did the tax rate—mostly on the rich. The practical effect was to redistribute income from top to bottom.

Democrats think it still works that way. It doesn’t.

The political landscape has shifted dramatically under Reagan, Clinton and the two Bushes. Budget cuts slashed spending on student financial aid, food stamps, Medicaid, school lunch programs, veterans hospitals, aid to single mothers. The social safety net is shredded. Most federal tax dollars flow directly into the Pentagon and defense contractors such as Halliburton.

As the economy continues to tank, there’s only one category to cut: social programs. “Eugene Steuerle worked on tax and budget issues in the Reagan Treasury Department and is now with the Urban Institute,” NPR reported a year ago. “He says one reason no one talks about preserving the social safety net today is that lawmakers have given themselves little choice but to cut it. They’ve taken taxes and entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, off the budget-cutting table, so there’s not much left.”

Meanwhile, effective tax rates on the wealthy have been greatly reduced. Which isn’t fair—but not in the way you might think.

Taxes on middle-class families are at their lowest level in 50 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal thinktank.

What’s going on?

On the revenue side of the budget equation, the poor and middle-class have received tiny tax cuts. The rich and super rich have gotten huge tax cuts. Everyone is paying less.

On the expense side, social programs have been pretty much destroyed. If you grow up poor there’s no way to attend college without going into debt. If you lose your job you’ll get 99 weeks of tiny, taxable (thanks to Reagan) unemployment checks before burning through your savings and winding up on the street.

Military spending, on the other hand, has soared, accounting for 54 percent of federal spending.

In short, we’re running up massive deficits in order to finance wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on, and so rich job-killers can pay the lowest tax rates in the developed world.

I’m all for higher taxes on the rich. I’m for abolishing the right to be wealthy.

But liberals who think progressive taxation will mitigate or reverse income inequality are trapped in the 1960s, fighting the last (budget) war in a reality that no longer exists. The U.S. government’s top priority is invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens. Without big social programs, invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens is exactly where every extra taxdollar collected from the likes of Mitt Romney would go.

The only way progressive taxation can address income inequality is if higher taxes on the rich are coupled with an array of new anti-poverty and other social programs designed to put money and new job skills directly into the pockets of the 99 percent of Americans who have seen no improvement in their lives since 1980.

You have to rebuild the safety net. Otherwise higher taxes will swirl down the Pentagon’s $800 toilets.

If you’re serious about inequality, income redistribution through the tax system is only a start. Whether through stronger unions or worker advocacy through federal agencies, government must require higher minimum wages. It should set a maximum wage, too. A nation that allows its richest citizen to earn ten times more than its poorest would still be horribly unfair—yet it would be a big improvement over today. Shipping jobs overseas must be banned. Most free trade agreements should be torn up. Companies must no longer be allowed to layoff employees before eliminating salaries and benefits for their top-paid managers—CEOs, etc.

And a layoff should mean just that—a layoff. First fired should be first rehired—at equal or greater pay—if and when business improves.

Once a battery of spending programs targeted to the 99 percent is in place—permanent unemployment benefits, subsidized public housing, full college grants, etc.—the tax code ought to be radically revamped. For example, nothing gives the lie to the myth of America as a land of equal opportunity than inheritance. Aristocratic societies pass wealth and status from generation to generation. In a democracy, no one has the right to be born into wealth.

Because everyone deserves an equal chance, the national inheritance tax should be 100 percent. While we’re at it, why should people who inherited wealth but have low incomes get off scot-free? Slap the bastards with a European-style tax on wealth as well as the appearance of wealth.

Now you’re probably laughing. Even Obama’s lame call for taxing the rich—so the U.S. can buy more drone planes—stands no chance of passing the Republican Congress. They’re empty words meant for election-year consumption. Taking income inequality seriously? That’s so off the table it isn’t even funny.

Which is why we shouldn’t be looking to corporate machine politicians like Obama for answers.

(Ted Rall is the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto.” His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL