We need a wealth tax, as France has: 0.25% of wealth above some high threshold. Applied to both individuals and corporations, including banks. The money supply has tripled since the start of the 2008 crisis—all that money is in the hoards of banks, corporations, and wealthy with no propensity to spend. Spending *is* the economy. Taxing income is not enough. Taxing spending burdens the poor, gives the rich a pass, and disincents economic activity. Tax where the money is: tax wealth.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/rage-against-the-coin/?comments#permid=210
We need a public-interest anti-ALEC group to draft model bills for the 99%.
We need public-interest lobbying teams on each issue the moneyed interests lobby on.
One very successful public-interest lobbying group is the Citizens’ Utility Board. With a tiny budget, it wins large savings for residential customers, off of the excessive rate increases utilities want. The CUB is a handful of hardworking, knowledgeable people, ferreting out the facts to counter the deceptions and obfuscations of the big utilities.
http://www.wiscub.org/index.php?module=cms&page=113
Part of the reason the CUBs are so successful is that decision-making is not by politicians but by an impartial, knowledgeable commission, in utility rate cases. Transferring decision-making on mining, agriculture, banking, medical services price regulation, insurance, and so on to such commissions should be a priority for public-interest lobbying.
We can’t stop lobbying by moneyed interests. We shouldn’t even if we could: even the wealthy have the right to express their views. What we must do is play them at the lobbying game. We can beat them—truth has a well-known liberal bias. We must play.
Corporations demand and get millions in “tax-incremental financing” from local governments; lax environmental, tort, and labor laws from state governments; lax financial regulations, tax havens, and free trade from the U.S. government.
Homeowners pay ever-higher property tax while rich developers extort millions from the local government.
Extortion—“Nice community you’ve got here. It’d be a shame if the big employer left the area.” —drives a race to the bottom in environmental protection, worker rights, tax revenues.
Changing the electorial allocation for the states themselves only increases the rural representation. They already get the advantage of the electorial system, where the smaller states get extra votes versus those with larger popultions. We don't need to skew it even more.
Dear Kidding; Whom would you like to get out there first? The 3yr old or the 80yr. old? How about the couple that are working their butts off making minimum wage and are barely able to keep a roof over there families head and food on the table? It is a good thing to THINK!
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