On August 7, 2015, Ring Of Fire posts:
While GOP candidates strut around, making grand declarations and sweeping generalizations about how they plan to “fix America,” Bernie Sanders has outlined a specific, step-by-step plan for actually doing it in a way that will benefit all Americans – not just the top 1%.
It will require some sacrifices from the billionaire class that has had it so good for so very long. Some of them may have to give up a summer mansion or two, or downsize their yachts, or trade in that new Lear Jet for a used turboprop plane, but some of them won’t mind – and those who do will manage to muddle through, somehow. This is because most of Sanders’ 10-step plan involves a massive overhaul of the US tax system, which is currently tilted in favor of rich, powerful people, both natural and corporate.
The first step would stop corporations from setting up domiciles in foreign countries in order to avoid paying US taxes. This alone would recover an estimated $100 billion for the US treasury. Step two would be to institute a “Robin Hood Tax” on Wall Street speculation. Those who make their fortunes gambling on “credit default swaps,” derivatives, stocks and commodities would pay a mere three cents on the dollar on every sale, but this would encourage investments in institutions and industries that actually produce tangible goods and services. This would also reduce the deficit by a whopping $352 billion over the next decade. Another $113 billion would be recovered by ending tax breaks and subsidies for the fossil fuel industries. Instituting a progressive estate tax on estates exceeding $3.5 million would bring in another $300 billion – and would affect very few people in America.
One of the most egregious aspects of the current tax code is its treatment of personal income. If you work for your money, you may pay nearly forty cents out of every dollar on April 15th, if you’re in the top tax bracket. On the other hand, if your money works for you – for example, if you live off of dividend income from investments – you pay a maximum of 23.9%. Under the Sanders Plan, taxing all income the same way would raise over half a trillion dollars over the next ten years. Finally, a Sanders Administration would eliminate the Bush tax cuts and eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes.
Beyond massive reform of the tax code, Sanders’ plan would also penalize foreign countries doing business with the US for engaging in currency manipulation, reduce the massive waste going on at the Department of Defense, and force the Medicare program to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for the lowest prices on prescription medications – which they are currently prohibited from doing under federal statute.
These are common-sense measures that are supported by virtually all of the 99% – and even a growing number of the 1%, who realize that the current system and the inequality it breeds is not in their own best interest. GOP candidates talk a good game – but Sanders is the one who actually has a workable plan based on solid facts and figures.
Fundamentally, Bernie Sanders effectively is saying that the system is broken, and is rigged to economically benefit the wealthy ownership class (although Sanders never refers to the word OWNERSHIP, with the exception when he refers to the top 1 percent OWNING more wealth than the bottom 99 percent). Concentrated wealth-creating, income-producing capital ownership is at the heart of the problem of economic inequality.
While Sanders performs a great service by defining the extent of economic inequality, his solutions do not go far enough to abate further concentrated capital ownership. Nor has there really been any offered by those stuck in the one-factor world of thinking that the ONLY way for the 99 percent, who are not capital owners, to earn income is through a JOB. This is why with every proposal, whether by Republican or Democrat or other political party policies makers, the component that justifies the economic policy is JOB CREATION. Yet there is NEVER a discussion which addresses who will benefit from the ownership of the economic scheme. What we need are policies and rules that will unite America, reform the system, and empower EVERY citizen to benefit economically from owning expanding shares in the corporations that are growing the economy.
Sanders points underscore just how inadequate our corporate and tax policies are, and how our priorities are wrong. The rich are getting richer through constant capital ownership accumulation aided by government policies and rules that extend huge tax breaks for corporations with no stipulation for broadening ownership of America’s corporations. Driven by the Republican Party, whose mantra is to protect corporate ownership concentration and profitability of those who presently OWN America––the wealthly capital ownership class, further reducing the corporate tax rate WITHOUT eliminating all tax loopholes and subsidies and the stipulation that all corporate profits by fully paid out as dividend earnings to the owners of the corporations will result in more unjust corporate ownership concentration and enrichment of the wealthy ownership class at the expense of the vast majority of working Americans stuck in the rut of wage slavery.
While Sanders should be applauded for putting forth solutions that would stop corporations from setting up domiciles in foreign countries in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes, institute a “Robin Hood Tax” on Wall Street speculation and instituting a progressive estate tax on estates exceeding $3.5 million, these solutions do not address lifting all legal barriers to universal capital ownership access by every child, woman, and man as a fundamental right of citizenship and the basis of personal liberty and empowerment. The goal should be to enable every child, woman, and man to become an owner of ever-advancing labor-displacing technologies, new and sustainable energy systems, new rentable space, new enterprises, new infrastructure assets, and productive land and natural resources as a growing and independent source of their future incomes.
In that regard, as a substitute for inheritance and gift taxes, a transfer tax should be imposed on the recipients whose holdings exceeded $1 million, thus encouraging the super-rich to spread out their monopoly-sized estates to all members of their family, friends, servants and workers who helped create their fortunes, teachers, health workers, police, other public servants, military veterans, artists, the poor and the disabled.
Another excellent solution advocated by Sanders is to tax all income earned by a person the same way, whether through their labor or through the contribution of their productive capital assets they own.
The corporate tax rate should be raised to at least 90 percent with the caveat that the tax would be exempt for those corporations that full paid out their earnings as dividend income to their owners, who would than pay whatever the personal tax rate was imposed.
Of course, the call for lowing corporate tax rates is ALL in the name of JOB CREATION, and Republicans blame outsourcing and the loss of jobs on what they believe is a high nominal tax rate that American corporations pay. But if the Republicans and the Democrats and other political party policy makers really want to end investment abroad and job outsourcing, then why not completely eliminate the corporate income tax in exchange for paying out fully the dividend earnings to the owners of the corporation and replacing retained earning and corporate debt financing of economic growth (neither of which creates new capital owners) with the issuance and sale of new corporate stock that represents future to-be-formed physical capital assets that would grow the economy? This would refocus investment in American corporations who want to grow the economy in our homeland, result in the creation of new capital owners who would make up a broad corporate ownership base, effectively empower the new owners to own the “machines” and technological production that are destroying jobs and devaluing the worth of labor, and effectively stimulate REAL (not make-work) employment opportunities as we build a FUTURE economy that can support general affluence for EVERY child, woman, and man.
How can we simultaneously grow the economy and create new capital owners?
We will need to reform our broken system in which economic growth is hindered by the slavery of “past” savings. The denial of consumption or “past” savings has been the primary means necessary to financing economic growth. We need to adopt new policies to provide the necessary system reforms to abate the further concentration of wealth-creating, income-producing capital ownership and ensure that continual broadened capital ownership and corresponding wealth building occurs and benefits EVERY citizen as the economy expands.
The most significant system reform needed is to equally empower EVERY citizen, without the requirement of “past” savings or capital asset equities, to acquire personal ownership shares in FUTURE wealth-creating, income-producing capital asset growth. This can be accomplished using insured (facilitated with private capital credit insurance or a government reinsurance agency––ala the Federal Housing Administration concept), interest-free capital credit loans issued by local banks repayable out of the FUTURE fully paid out dividend earnings generated by profitable investments in the corporations growing the economy. This objective can be achieved with the passage of the proposed Capital Homestead Act.
Here is what I recommend Senator Bernie Sanders incorporate into his 12-point economic plan:
A more comprehensive set of solutions can be found in the platform of the Unite America Party, a platform is offered for adoption by any political party or politician.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/. See http://cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ and http://cesj.org/…/uploads/Free/capitalhomesteading-s.pdf.
Support the Unite America Party Platform, published by The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/platform-of-the-unite-ame_b_5474077.html as well as Nation Of Change at http://www.nationofchange.org/platform-unite-america-party-1402409962 and OpEd News at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Platform-of-the-Unite-Amer-by-Gary-Reber-Party-Leadership_Party-Platforms-DNC_Party-Platforms-GOP-RNC_Party-Politics-Democratic-140630-60.html.
