Winning Progressive

(By Mark Bridger, cross-posted at ThatMansScope)

For the past 40 years or so there has been a de facto class warfare in this country. While workers’ productivity has soared, worker compensation has remained essentially flat. Meanwhile, corporate profits have boomed and the gap between the top 2% of income earners  and the remaining 98% has widened to the largest its been since the gilded Age of the Robber Barons (late 19th century) or the time just preceding the Great Depression.

(There is really no dispute about this; to see some background and charts, here are some from the Economic Policy Institute.  Also check out this discussion of CEO pay increases at the Institute for Policy Studies.)

In spite of this, Republicans and other so-called “conservatives” are suggesting that we somehow must all share equally in reducing the public debt and balancing budgets. What makes this even more outrageous is that they don’t even mean equally. What they mean is that the rich should continued to enjoy tax breaks that are unequally in their favor, while Congress must enact spending cuts that hit programs that the wealthy don’t need or even like — e.g. national parks, protective regulation, healthcare and aid to education. Thus, as Weill/Brecht say in Three Penny Opera “The answer to a kick in the pants is just another kick in the pants.” Thus, the much-vaunted “Simpson-Bowles” prescription for paying down the debt is yet another kick in the pants for working non-rich Americans.

Yet, we can “fix the deficit” and end class warfare simply by cutting away the nonsense about “job creators” and “balanced approaches” and all the rest of that 2% propaganda that even the Democrats are circulating. Several years ago I suggested an alternative tax and spending program that would have balanced the budget (at that time): You can find it here; it has a link to a NY Times “budget calculator” which, though somewhat outdated, is fun to play with; click here (you can use it to check some of the figures for the suggestions I make below).

Here then is my updated program for tax fairness and spending reform.

1. Tax all income equally. In other words, eliminate a special Capital Gains Tax and tax all income including dividends at the same graduated rates. This will prevent Mitt Romney and Warren Buffet from paying at a lower rate than their secretaries.

2. Put a sales tax on sales and purchases of stocks and bonds. Speculators should pay a tax on their sales and purchases the same as most of us do on school books, garbage cans and refrigerators. I discussed this in a previous blog. This tax would be small (¼% on each sale and each purchase) and would not be burdensome to people who are actually investing as opposed to speculating. It could generate as much as $100 billion a year.

3. Cap total deductions for income tax purposes to something around $50,000. This was, in fact, an idea proposed by Mitt Romney near the end of this year’s campaign. I doubt that either he or any Republicans would actually support its implementation since it would do a lot to level the tax playing field.

4. Return the Estate Tax to 1998-2000 levels (around 50% on estates above $3 million — we could raise that to $5 million even).

5. Sell carbon licenses to industry and allow trading of these licenses. This was also at one time a Republican plan, before the party became opposed to everything except showering money on its wealthy patrons.

6. End the state of perpetual war and cut the military budget  to pre-Cold War levels (as percentage of GNP). Bring all troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Drastically cut troop levels in Europe, Japan and Korea.

7. End the expensive and ineffective War on Marijuana and redirect most of the rest of the ineffective “War on Drugs” toward treatment of addiction. This would save not just on police time but also help to lower the lavish spending on prisons.

8. Cut agricultural subsidies to big agribusiness (especially ethanol subsidies to “Big Corn”).

9. Cut oil subsidies to companies like Exxon-Mobil.

10. Save Social Security for a century by eliminating the limit on income subject to the FICA tax. Doing this would make raising the retirement age or adjusting the COLAs unnecessary.

Note that I didn’t mention ending the “Bush Tax Cuts.” I am assuming that they will disappear on schedule January 1. Reinstituting them for people earning less than a quarter million dollars a year will probably be one of the few things that will happen in a somewhat bipartisan way: the Republicans can’t afford not to.

This leaves the last and biggest elephant in the tent: Medicare, Medicaid, and healthcare in general. People far more knowledgeable than I have made many suggestions that might be effective. We know that the problem can be addressed effectively because every other advanced industrialized country (and many others besides) have systems that provide better healthcare results than ours and at half the cost. We should have had “Medicare for All” (the “public option”) but that didn’t happen because of the power of the insurance industry. Nevertheless, we can start with substituting “outcome-based” compensation for the current “fee for services” contracts. Instead of doctors and hospitals being paid for the number of treatments and tests they provide, they would be paid for keeping certain numbers of people healthy over certain periods of time. This is part of Obamacare, but needs to be the standard “operating procedure” for all of national healthcare.

The steps I have suggested above would raise far more money in a far fairer way than anything proposed by either political party. Furthermore, they would help reduce the burden unfairly placed on the working people of this country by 4 decades of class warfare against them.

(By The Pragmatic Pundit)

The so-called Fiscal Cliff is a political creation…the cousin to Starve the Beast.  I don’t know why they think everyone is so dumb.  We print our own currency, set the interest rate and owe a third of the debt to ourselves.  Can I rant a little?

Every time I hear politicians say the approach to solving the deficit should be “fair and balanced”, I want to spit.  There was absolutely nothing fair and balanced about its accumulation.  The rich made out like bandits, while the Middle Class struggled.

But, you hear it all the time…”everyone has to sacrifice”.  Really?  Well, the Middle Class has been sacrificing for decades.  Now, all of a sudden, it is fair for “everyone” to feel the pinch?  I don’t think so!  The Middle Class has been slapped, punched and kicked long enough.

The rich have extracted the national treasury and refused to invest in the country and the Middle Class owes them something more?  The so-called job creators, created no jobs.  They just took their tax-cuts and ran.  Not because they are uncertain…because they are greedy, heartless and unpatriotic.

The Middle Class stood in unemployment lines, suffered the humiliation of food stamps and food pantries, dropped out of college or couldn’t go, moved back home, suffered through illness without medical care, watched the value of our homes diminish, moved into our cars and onto the streets.  We already went over the cliff.  We are broke and we should sacrifice more?

I don’t think so.

To whom much is given, much is expected; and that is as it should be.  The rich reaped all the benefits of the downturn, so let them finance the upturn.  Raise taxes on the rich and give the Middle Class the tax cuts for a change.  Raise the minimum wage to $12.00 an hour, so anyone working can earn a living wage. Give everyone access to healthcare and an education.  After a few decades, like the rich had, then we can talk about “fair and balanced”.  Until then, leave the Middle Class alone!

It’s our turn!

For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on the Obama vs. Romney Supreme Court, True the Vote, rebuilding the middle class, guns and reducing crime in big cities, and dealing with climate change.

An Obama Supreme Court Versus a Romney High Court – a report evaluating the potential impacts of November’s Presidential election on the future of the Supreme Court and the critical economic and social issues that the Court will likely face over the next years and decades.

A Reading Guide to True the Vote - an overview and collection of articles about True the Vote, the right-wing, tea party aligned organization that is promising to have 1 million poll watchers interfering with people’s right to vote this November.

10 Ways to Rebuild the Middle Class For Hardworking Americans – a report on raising the minimum wage, protecting union rights, stopping wage theft, making workplaces family friendly, and other steps that are key to restoring the middle class in the US.

Our Romance With Guns – a review of three books discussing our nation’s obsessions with guns and and the strategies that cities have taken to reduce gun violence.

In a Climate-Crazed World, How Can We Plan for the Future? – an essay about the challenges of taking action today to address future problems, such as climate change, that have uncertain ramifications, timing, etc.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on the right wing effort to build an army of poll watchers to try to steal the election this fall; efforts to approve of marriage equality in Maine, Maryland, and Washington; the economic struggle of the middle class, how big corporations are increasingly running state courts, and Paul Ryan’s other radical guru.

How the Right is Building its “Poll Watcher” Network for November - the story of how the right-wing organization True the Vote is working to build an army of “poll watchers” to help suppress voting this November.   To help counteract this effort and make sure that every eligible voters gets to cast their vote this November, please volunteer for the Democratic National Committee’s voter protection effort.

The Future of Marriage Equality – a report on the fight for marriage equality in three states – Maine, Maryland, and Washington – where the issue will be on the ballot this November.  Here are links to support the effort in Maine, Maryland, and Washington.

The Lost Decade of the Middle Class – a comprehensive review of the economic blow that the middle class in America has suffered over the past decade, with stagnant income and declining net worth.  Most Americans accurately identify Congress, banks and  financial institutions, big corporations, and the Bush Administration as the primary culprits in causing this economic decline.

Big Business Taking Over State Supreme Courts - a report on how a tidal wave of money is allowing corporate interests to get an increasingly tight stranglehold on court systems in the 39 states where judges are elected rather than appointed.

Prime Time for Paul Ryan’s Guru (the One Who’s Not Ayn Rand) – a look at the radical views of another person who Paul Ryan identifies as a guru on his economic and budget policies – Friedrich von Hayek.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have an in-depth investigation showing that Texas almost certainly executed an innocent person, a report on how a stable middle class encourages economic growth, an article uncovering other organizations promoting corporate conservative state legislation, how Mitt “Severe Conservative” Romney is a servant of the right wing, and how profit-making has led Louisiana to have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man – an article about the Columbia Human Rights Law Review’s 436-page article Los Tocayos Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution which demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that Texas executed an innocent man, Carlos DeLuna, in 1989 for a murder that he did not commit.  The book and all of its supporting documentation are available online at thewrongcarlos.com

The American Middle Class, Income Inequality, and the Strength of Our Economy – a report by the Center for American Progress about the latest economic research demonstrating that a strong middle class is critical to economic growth, while inequality tends to undermine growth.

Mitt Romney, Servant of the Right – an essay arguing that Romney, were he to become President, would not govern as a moderate and instead would do the bidding of the right wing.   Winning Progressive has been making a similar argument, and we have started a new page of questions for Romney about the extreme views of the advisers and organizations that Romney is surrounding himself with.

Louisiana is the World’s Prison Capital – an in-depth assessment of how Louisiana’s system of for-profit prisons and local sheriffs who profit off of them have created an incarceration rate in Louisiana that is twice that of the US as a whole, triple the rate in Russia, and five times higher than the rate in Iran.

Uncovering the Other ALECs – a look at how state government “trade associations” such as the Council of State Governments and the National Conference of State Legislatures work to promote a corporate conservative legislative agenda on issues like school privatization, fracking, tort reform, and other issues

(By Joanne Boyer, cross-posted at Wisdom Voices)

Each generation of Americans has been tasked with preserving and expanding this great experiment in representative government. Ours is no different. Although the assault thrown at us by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling (allowing corporations to pour unlimited amounts of money into our political system) seems overwhelming, it is up to ‘we the people’ to push back and say, ‘No.’  We are the people who run this country – not corporations.

In that spirit, I am pleased to announce that I will be joining with Stewart Acuff, Chief of Staff for the Utility Workers of America and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, peace studies professor at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota) on a speaking tour:  Reclaiming The Middle Class:  An Evening of Conversation.

It is our hope that by engaging in discussion with the electorate we can remind them of the individual power they carry to fight back against the corporate interests who appear to control every aspect of our lives – from health care to education, to the very air we breathe and water we drink.

Our first stops will take us to the heart of the great Iron Range of Minnesota. On Monday, May 21, Stewart and I will be speaking on issues central to restoring strength to middle-class America at 7 p.m. at the Duluth Labor Temple (Wellstone Hall), 2002 London Road in Duluth.  It was Paul Wellstone who once said:  “The people of this country, not special interest big money, should be the source of all political power. Government must remain the domain of the general citizenry, not a narrow elite.”

On Tuesday, May 22, we will be at Kaleva Hall in Virginia, Minnesota (7 p.m.).  Acuff’s book, Playing Bigger Than You Are:  A Life in Organizing, illustrates his belief that the struggle for workers’ rights is rooted in fairness, righteousness and the lessons of nonviolence exhibited by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Acuff’s 35 years of union organizing has led him to say: “I know that as bad as it may seem today, and it may get worse, there will be a time when good people, average people, unite and turn it around.  That’s been what’s happened in the course of human history and American history.  Every generation has struggled to make this species more fair, more free, more just.

We will then join with Nelson-Pallmeyer on Wednesday, May 23 at Common Good Books in St. Paul at 7 p.m. Nelson-Pallmeyer, is also founder of Minnesota’s Arms Spending Alternative Project (MN-ASAP), and he is the author of the book:  Authentic Hope:  It’s The End of the World As We Know It, But Soft Landings Are Possible.  Nelson-Pallmeyer is a firm believer in the power generated at the local level: “It really is the grass roots groups who are doing the effective and creative work to move us into a different future.  That’s where hope really lies.  Hope isn’t rooted in the notion that we’ll elect a politician who will bring about the solution. What we need to do is activate our own potential and stop being the consumers of politics and be more the protagonists for change in what has become a really ugly system.”

We look forward to going down this path and meeting with the United Citizens of our great country who will eventually be the ones who turn back Citizens United and put us back on the road to reclaiming the middle class as the vibrant force for our future.