Raise the Minimum Wage and Wipe Out the Deficit!
We could have a $15 minimum wage and save the damn country. But we would have to want to.
How would you pay for it? And wipe out our deficit and debt?
Well, let's try. This dumb old socialist has a few ideas to get us started.
Return the top tax rate to Clinton era percentages. Put a microscopic fee on stock and commodity transactions, and make the people that broke us, fix us. You want to play in the casino? You gotta pay. Break up the big banks. Return Glass/Steagal. Strengthen the SEC, and put the guys that are killing this country in jail, along with massive fines.
Repatriate offshore funds by not letting corporations do business in this country at all, if they're using tax havens.
Stop subsidizing wealthy people to NOT grow food. Stop subsidizing profitable businesses.
Stop privatizing prisons that serve only to incentivize breaking people so they can be jailed for profit, on the taxpayer dime.
Oh yeah, the simple act of putting more money in poor people's pockets generates more economic activity.
Easy-peasy.
And I bet I'm forgetting a lot. Ah! Legalize and tax marijuana. Tax the churches.
Tax tobacco to the hilt. It's not about your right to smoke, it's about Phillip Morris's right to sell you a deadly, addictive product.
Return the tip credit to federalized half of minimum wage, and shut down the NRA (the restaurant one...)
Regulate the environment and financial markets WITH TEETH. It has to cost corporations massively more in fines and jail time than they save by cutting corners and jeopardizing us all.
As for the OTHER NRA, no fault insurance. Tighter gun sales regulations. More training and background checks. Again, it's not about your right to buy guns to compensate for your tiny dick. It's about manufacturers right to SELL you guns, to compensate for your tiny dick, and your paranoia (which they are more than happy to foster).
Overturn Citizens United, and end the ability to buy our democracy.
Tax carbon based energy and nukes to pay for R&D on renewables.
Single payer health care for all.
Stop having states compete for business on tax breaks that they can't afford.
Outlaw doing business by using slave labor overseas, and demand that nations with trade favoritism use the same (or approaching the same) labor and environmental regulations, or better, than we do.
Strengthen unions!
Go on, people. I know you can add to the list. I haven't even mentioned our military yet. (Keep our promises to our veterans, and make fewer veterans by not going to war so easily, for starters. AND STOP USING WAR AS A SUBSIDY FOR CORPORATIONS!).
We could fund a futuristic paradise, and, as I keep saying, SAVE CAPITALISM FROM BEING DESTROYED BY CAPITALISTS!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/23/1225932/-Uncappable-underground-blowout-spills-thousands-of-barrels-of-tar-sands-oil-in-Cold-Lake-Alberta?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#
How to reengage the left:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/28/readers-and-writers-react-to-%E2%80%9Cthe-surrender-of-americas-liberals%E2%80%9D/
I was just reviewing old Facebook posts tonight (4/3/14), and ran across this rant I made three years before I posted this addition to my blog (three years before I had a blog!). Seems like I've been trying to get this idea across a long time...:
How would you pay for it? And wipe out our deficit and debt?
Well, let's try. This dumb old socialist has a few ideas to get us started.
Return the top tax rate to Clinton era percentages. Put a microscopic fee on stock and commodity transactions, and make the people that broke us, fix us. You want to play in the casino? You gotta pay. Break up the big banks. Return Glass/Steagal. Strengthen the SEC, and put the guys that are killing this country in jail, along with massive fines.
Repatriate offshore funds by not letting corporations do business in this country at all, if they're using tax havens.
Stop subsidizing wealthy people to NOT grow food. Stop subsidizing profitable businesses.
Stop privatizing prisons that serve only to incentivize breaking people so they can be jailed for profit, on the taxpayer dime.
Oh yeah, the simple act of putting more money in poor people's pockets generates more economic activity.
Easy-peasy.
And I bet I'm forgetting a lot. Ah! Legalize and tax marijuana. Tax the churches.
Tax tobacco to the hilt. It's not about your right to smoke, it's about Phillip Morris's right to sell you a deadly, addictive product.
Return the tip credit to federalized half of minimum wage, and shut down the NRA (the restaurant one...)
Regulate the environment and financial markets WITH TEETH. It has to cost corporations massively more in fines and jail time than they save by cutting corners and jeopardizing us all.
As for the OTHER NRA, no fault insurance. Tighter gun sales regulations. More training and background checks. Again, it's not about your right to buy guns to compensate for your tiny dick. It's about manufacturers right to SELL you guns, to compensate for your tiny dick, and your paranoia (which they are more than happy to foster).
Overturn Citizens United, and end the ability to buy our democracy.
Tax carbon based energy and nukes to pay for R&D on renewables.
Single payer health care for all.
Stop having states compete for business on tax breaks that they can't afford.
Outlaw doing business by using slave labor overseas, and demand that nations with trade favoritism use the same (or approaching the same) labor and environmental regulations, or better, than we do.
Strengthen unions!
Go on, people. I know you can add to the list. I haven't even mentioned our military yet. (Keep our promises to our veterans, and make fewer veterans by not going to war so easily, for starters. AND STOP USING WAR AS A SUBSIDY FOR CORPORATIONS!).
We could fund a futuristic paradise, and, as I keep saying, SAVE CAPITALISM FROM BEING DESTROYED BY CAPITALISTS!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/23/1225932/-Uncappable-underground-blowout-spills-thousands-of-barrels-of-tar-sands-oil-in-Cold-Lake-Alberta?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#
How to reengage the left:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/28/readers-and-writers-react-to-%E2%80%9Cthe-surrender-of-americas-liberals%E2%80%9D/
I was just reviewing old Facebook posts tonight (4/3/14), and ran across this rant I made three years before I posted this addition to my blog (three years before I had a blog!). Seems like I've been trying to get this idea across a long time...:
How
to get the country out of debt. On the revenue side: 4.5 to 6 TRILLION
dollars in 2 moves. Undo the Bush tax cuts. End the wars in Iraq and
Afghanastan.
Further:
Further:
- Darrin Freeborn likes this.
Alex McDowell Legalize and tax the sales of marijuana. End the 400 Billion+ just in the cost of incarceration, not to mention the costs in money and violence on the pre-incarceration side of the war on pot.
End tax-exemption for churches. Tax the assets and incomes of organizations whose major income stream comes just from telling fairy tales. They can get tax deductions for the expenses of doing charity work, but the income stream and wages should be taxed like anyone else.- Alex McDowell End all subsidies for oil, coal, and gas. There should be a tax per barrel of at least 95%. Up the offshore drilling fees x100. Put 80% of that income toward the true costs of the energy, clean up, and R&D toward ending the use of fossil fuels TOTALLY. Every damn building in the country should have miniwindmills and or solar panels on them, with a generating system, cutting energy and putting electricity BACK into the grid.
- Alex McDowell Universal, single payer health care. Get rid of the health insurance industry. We don't need 30% or whatever skimmed off the top of health services by a system that is geared toward maximizing profit by figuring out how to NOT give people the services they paid for.
- Alex McDowell Polluter pays...not just the costs, but Draconian fines, fees and reparations. We have to stop the ability of corporations and businesses to have the lawyers and accountants find a way to make profits by raping the air, land, and water that are all of our birthrights.
- Alex McDowell We still need foriegn trade, but we need to make it fairer. And we need to stop encouraging other countries with our treasure to enslave people, pollute, and dump poisonous or unsafe products on our markets just in the interest of shaving expenses.
- Alex McDowell Cigarettes.. Sorry guys. I've been a smoker since I was 13. And I think it's finally getting to me in a major way. This is a product that has no use except death, and profits for the killers. Taxes on these things should bring the cost to around $50/pack or more. You want 'em? You pay for 'em. And the tobacco companies should foot a lot of the bills for health care out of their profits
- Alex McDowell How about we start taxing the perks, incomes, and benefits of CEO's, presidents, boards, and management of corporations on a sliding scale according to the % that they are paid over the income of the lowest earners in the companies? And for any jobs that they send out of the country? Put more money in the hands of people that work for them, the people that spend a larger share of their income just on the basics of survival? The people that will ultimately put more money into economic activity? Sure, make a profit from the sale of goods and services, from doing it better, but from screwing over the people that work for you? For your bigger bonuses? Pay up!
- Alex McDowell Stop encouraging people to have more children. Tax breaks should be going to people that AREN'T putting so much more strain on our environment, infrastructure, health system, and stress levels from overcrowding. 90% of the problems we have are from overpopulation. John & Kate? The octo-mom? These people shouldn't be offered TV shows. They should be social pariahs.
- Alex McDowell A lot of this (and more) should have been done decades ago. We've wasted so much time on arguements that should have been settled back then. We could have had a debt-free, unbelievably wealthy nation by now. We could have cleaned up our environment, been an economic engine of progress, and should be exploring the galaxy by now.
- Alex McDowell Anyway, that's the country I envisioned us being. At least the one we should be moving toward. But, no, we're moving in the other direction. Dumber, dirtier, more crowded, less free, poorer, more angry, more violent, more distracted, more backwards, more divisive.
- Alex McDowell While I'm on a roll (or on toast, depending on your POV), we should be investing in high-speed, and light rail. Invest in universal single payer health (of course) , education, R&D, and peace. How much should we be investing in just making the super-rich, super-richer? How much should we be investing our capital in interest payments on loans, and fees on energy to foreign powers that don't like us and wish us harm?
- Alex McDowell Anyway, time's a' wasting. Teabagging ain't gonna get us there. Big government isn't the problem. Big money, power, credulity, and stupidity is.
- Alex McDowell William O. Douglas said it best, and I'm going to try to get the gist of what he said. When making decisions in the Supreme Court, he prioritized. Government over corporations, individuals over government, and the environment over everything. I think that's a good starting point. One we're no where near following yet.
- Alex McDowell Sorry for the long rant. But FOX News is putting on their fear campaign about the national debt and socialism. And I have other answers than theirs.July 12, 2010 at 8:42am · Like
The IMF even weighs in on the damage we're doing to ourselves, mostly thanks to the GOP:
America Is Globally Shamed For Its Pathetic Minimum Wage
Comments
Also, consider the need for raises in the board rooms, and the constant need for investors to see profit growth, whatever the cost. These tend to drive prices up, and flatten wages more often than not.
I haven't done the math, personally (and am not likely to) but it's said that a minimum wage of $12 for walmart workers would drive their prices up an average of $.48 per person per visit. Not $.48 on the dollar. Per visit. Forty eight cents to put more money in people's pocket, that they would spend to increase economic activity. Spend on necessities. Not sock away in an investment account. Not off-shore in tax havens.
It would generate tax revenues, growth, and jobs.