Where does the money come from?
We have this morning the residue from a 100 year flood in Louisiana, and a terrifying wild fire, the largest of many, in CA. What if Mt. Rainier had erupted at the same time, pouring tons of mud on surrounding communities? It is considered active, in geological terms, along with Hood, Adams and many of the other Cascade volcanoes.
These are disasters of Biblical proportions. "Capitalism", "Free Market" cannot cope with them.
Add on to natural disasters the pressing need to upgrade our roads, railways bridges, provide some relief to our poorest citizens and so on. Where can the money come from?
Two places.
1. Tax Wall Street transactions. Maybe some kind of exemption for the person who sells stock once in a lifetime to send a kid to college. Maybe, but all other buying and selling of stocks and, I would think, bonds not issued by governments, should be subject to the same sales taxes you and I pay if we buy a car, our kid a musical instrument, or a pair of shoes.
2. Cut back defense spending. I would say, cancel private contracts for things like food service, etc., close overseas military bases on a reasonable schedule, and put our servicemen and women to work stateside dealing with things like wildfires--we need to be able to call on at least twice as many trained firefighters during the summers--disaster relief, maybe even things like staffing inner city schools and so on.
I would suggest that any new party, or insurgent candidate in either of the two major parties could do worse than begin with those two points I outlined above.
Comments
Tax the rich and corporate................
The dirty little secret is that since Reagan, taxes on the richest and the corporations have plummeted. During the 50's rich people paid up to 90% in taxes over $3Million, I believe. The incentive was to keep that money invested. Corporations used to pay about 30% of the tax bill for the country, now they are down to 9%.
Reagan took us from a creditor nation to a debtor nation, just that fast. Since then we have passed trade bills that encourage corporations to move their factories and money off shore. We have looted every pool of money held by the government from the Highway Fund to Social Security. We cut, cut, cut taxes on the rich and corporate under the delusion that somehow that will create jobs.
We still hear the same fable today - trickle down economics, free trade, flat tax, corporate taxes are too high! It is all bullcrap.
Until we actually have the conversation on a nationwide basis and people understand what Bernie Sanders was trying to tell them, we will be trapped in this alternative reality of 1984. The rich and corporate have captured the media and they broadcast THEIR message for prosperity, not the message of prosperity for the rest of the country and the world.
People are hungry to hear a message that pertains to them, that makes sense to them and their own situation. It's not good enough to hear things are looking up when your own situation is on the skids. The trick is getting the message out. Jill Stein is trying, alternative media is working, getting to the kids in high school before they get brainwashed into the student debt load brought on by a cruel system that tells them they will get good jobs, all they have to do is borrow more money than they can ever hope to get back and keep their fingers crossed. This is where the movement starts. Old people already know or are unable to adjust their thinking to the new reality.
I have always thought that we should have some kind of
National Disaster Insurance to cover floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, etc. or whatever is excluded from most homeowner policies.
It probably would have to have some kind of capped amount, like replacement value as stated your homeowners policy but no more than the median priced home in that zipcode or something like that. Since the only wealth most Americans have is home equity, most people would be virtually penniless if they lost their major investment in a flood or earthquake. Also what is often not taken into consideration is that the deductibles on most homeowners policies nowadays are so high, that it's possible many people would never be able to utilize their coverage, they just don't realize it.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
Why insurance?
Why not a federal rapid response team, of servicemen and women or others, who could be sent to cope as situations arise. Bring our servicemen and women home does not mean dump them out on the streets. There are plenty of urgent tasks they could be put to doing.
My feeling is that, this time, the private sector does not get a share,
Mary Bennett
There used to be a financial transaction tax
The USA used to have a 0.4% financial transaction tax. It was repealed in 1966.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
Good point. We also used to have an effective progressive tax
system; an effective estate tax; laws keeping a lid on usury; a law forbidding corporate stock buy-backs because it's insider trading; laws forbidding the hiring of scabs during a legal strike; law that were enforced prohibiting anti-competitive practices.
And so on...
90% of Americans favor the Country Of Origin Labeling law - Where does the meat come from? Obama signed that away.
There's been a divorce between what strong majorities want from the branches of government and what we get so, therefore, it's OK to realize that we are not now living in a representative democracy. (It's interesting to see a poll where a greater % of Republicans are against unfair "trade" deals like NAFTA than the % of Democrats.)
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Rep. de Fazio, D OR, has introduced a bill in the House
which would impose a WS transactions tax. I just signed a petition at CREDO in support of it. Now, I have my doubts as to the usefulness of petitions, but whatever works.
New York State--you are not going to believe this--does impose a WS transactions tax, which the state collects....and then sends back! Unfreaking believable!
Mary Bennett