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Andrew Pena

English 1010
2/23/15

Rhetorical Analysis: Even Better Than a Tax Cut


Lawrence Mishel is a nationally recognized economists, he currently holds the positon of
president of the Economic Policy Institute. He has been the president of EIP since 2002 and has
been a member since 1987. I have recently read an article of his published by the New York
Times called Even Better Than a Tax Cut. In his article he stresses that the most harm done to
workers is not the amount of taxes being held from ones check, but the insufficient amount of
wages employers are giving. In his article Lawrence explains this is true by addressing current
issues, stating facts that backs his argument, and emotional ties.
Right off the bat in his first line of his article the author ties us emotionally he states,
With the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign underway and millions of Americans
still hurting financially in just this sentence he makes us feel emotionally attached by
expressing that America is hurting financially. Another example of his use of emotions to
persuade us is when he says, its impossible to continually cut taxes and still pay for things like
education and social programs for the growing population of older Americans. In this statement
not only does he state his opinion, but he follows it with reminding us that taxes are essential
because they pay for thing we care about like education and elderly programs.
Lawrence uses an immense amount of logic and facts that to back his arguments. It seems
about roughly half of his article was him pointing out facts and different statists. After almost
every argument he makes, he follows it with some sort of statics to back his claim. This is

helpful because it lets us know that he actually knows what he is talking about because an
opinion without the facts to back it is hardly persuasive at all.
A big factor that helps the author be persuasive is the timeliness he uses by comparing
present day income to income 30-20 years ago, stating what is wrong in present time and making
goals for the future. The author says that there is no reason why we should be worried about
paying less taxes when where already paying about half the amount of taxes that we were in the
80s. This backs his argument because it tells us that we have already been cutting taxes and
doing it over and over again isnt going to help. The facts he states about the present give us
more background information so we know what the current problems are. He also set out goals
or recommendations for the future like raising minimum wage to 12.50 by 2020. He use of
timeliness help us further grasp what he is arguing and should how his future plans will help with
the problem he is addressing.
Overall the author has written a very persuasive article using kronos, ethos, pathos, and
logos. As the author being the vice president of the economic policy intuition alone gives his an
immense amount of creditability and lets us know that his word can be trusted. All the facts he
states leads us to believe that he really know what he is talking about and isnt just some random
opinion of his. The immense amount of emotions tells us that this topic is something he is very
passionate about and lets us know that he is not only trying to help himself but all people as a
whole. The kronos is add bonus that help use see thing in a bit of a different perspective. The
author has proven that all of these tools very effecting in writing a great op-ed article.

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