It’s obvious from the last few years that while free trade policies – such as they are now – have increased wealth in this country, there have not been equal distribution of the benefits. Just today Chrysler laid off 16% of its US workforce.
Why not just impose a 5% charge on all imported manufactured goods or services. The services I would assess by a 5% tax on all wages paid to non-citizen workers. The corporations would no doubt find a way to game with subsidiaries, contractors, and the difficulty of enforcement (the Achilles’ heel of my plan, IMHO) and such that so it will have to be more fleshed out, and I’m not doing that without pay. But that is the general idea. The fun part is what to spend it on - oh I've got ideas. Follow me below the flip, if you dare – bwhahahahahah, erm oops sorry that just sort of slipped out. ::knocks head:: I’ve got to stop with the evil laugh, this is why I’m posting a diary on V day . . .
Now what to do with the dough? I’d be nice if there was someway to find out how much it would bring in? Conservatively let’s say we’d have at least $200B to play with. I have two ideas. Obviously we could use a portion of it for universal health care. Not to fully find it, put to supplement the costs here say around $75 to $100B. Now we’ve got an extra $125-100B left. Let’s just give it away – a flat check to every non-dependant taxpayer whose primary source of income is from labor and wages (50% +1) as opposed to capital gains. The only requirement is the filing of a tax return. I would estimate the checks to be around $1400 (strangely I cannot find, even on the many internets, how many non-dependant taxpayers filed in 2005). Bets of all, the checks would go out on July 5th. Past taxes and just at the beginning of the best part of summer.
Part 2: Wherein I address the "redistribution of wealth is inefficient, you pinko commie bastard" crowd
Yes, yes. It’s a blunt hammer I’ve thought up here, and as I see it there are two nails. The benefits of the gains from free trade are flowing primarily to capital. But since the marginal value of each successive dollar is smaller those dollars are, right now, being used inefficiently. They do little to increase demand for labor here in the US (little seems to be going to in-country capital investment/expansion). Whereas the dollar given to labor (the checks) will have a much more immediate impact since the dollar is more likely to be spent locally/retail level (perhaps on imported goods thus completing the virtuous cycle).
It seems blunt, as I mentioned previously, but such systems are not unknown in other market areas. Take Alaska for example. True the government needs to encourage people to live there but still every year the gov’t cuts them a check. Or, more locally, when I was living in Minnesota they had a renter’s/ property tax rebate filed with the state income tax.
Part 3: "But checks? Isn’t that a little silly?"
Well I’m open to other ideas like using them to fund add-on accounts (while keeping SS as it is for now) or perhaps in some other way. But the main inspiration behind the checks was finding a way to that the tax would be mostly untouchable to protect universal health care. The first thing a GOP congress would do would be to cut down the tax thus reducing the money coming in. So they’ll see a reduction without any corresponding benefits (I’m guessing that cutting from 5% to say 3% would have a marginal impact on prices since most of the gains would go to capital).
I’m a little clueless on the economics here but there has to be someway of ensuring the benefits of outsourcing are shared. This is all back-of-the-cocktail-napkin thinking. It is generally gospel among the econ people but I am curious as anyone ever written a history of the actual effects of limited redistribution in actual history? The Roman gain dole comes to mind. But has there been some economy that has suffered from disastrous consequences from modest redistribution?