Essex High School student Ari Glasser placed second in Sen. Bernie Sanders' fifteenth annual State of the Union Essay Contest, which gives Vermont high school students the opportunity to describe a major issue facing our country and propose what they would do to solve it.
Glasser wrote about the influence of billionaires in our political system:
“Today, America is in a sort of Second Gilded Age- complete with drastic wealth inequality and a dangerous level of influence by the ultra-wealthy that is becoming ever nearer to oligarchy. Just 735 billionaires hold more wealth than the bottom half of all American households. In order to reduce the concerning level of billionaire influence, many reforms must be enacted, but perhaps most important is a wealth tax. This could raise trillions of dollars for the government while also reducing the wealth and influence of billionaires over time. In addition to reducing the economic power of billionaires, their political influence must be reduced through the use of campaign finance reform- most importantly, overturning the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC.”
EHS student Emilee Brownell was also a contest finalist.
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