David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer-winning former financial reporter for The New York Times, spoke to an audience of Washington State students Thursday evening about the disparities in the American tax system and economy.

Johnston, an adjunct business and law professor at Syracuse, discussed how the tax system is not fairly designed and favors large multinational companies, such as the 3,000 companies that get to keep state income taxes.

“Our government is picking the winner and losers,” he said during his presentation.

Johnston covered an array of ways that companies can avoid taxes and even get easy tax deductions. He also discussed the disparity in the tax rate for single workers, whose median wage has been stuck since 1998, in contrast to the rich.

“The richest people in America at that time, they’d work every Monday until about 3:45 in the afternoon to pay their taxes, but the median wage worker had to work all of Monday and half of Tuesday to pay their taxes,” Johnston said.

At the end of his presentation, Johnston gave his fundamental premise to the audience: “You’re going to choose what you want to do in life, that’s what liberty is about. You should make the choices you want to make and you’ll have consequences.”