Here is my short list of how we fix what’s ailing us as a society, in a big picture way – meaning, nothing focused on a specific interest group. Here’s how we make things better, more predictable, more fair, more reasonable for everyone:
Around these parts, I’m the go-to guy for a couple of dozen folks. “Mr. Fix-it”. Haven’t done your taxes? Buying a car? Buying a house? Spending too much money? Thinking of joint checking? How do I fix my LinkedIn profile? Come and ask me.
Not only that, but I’m also the source for explanations as to why things aren’t working or work the way they do. This week – “why do we have to pay AMT?” “how are the tax rates of the top 400 families lower than mine?” “why is gasoline so expensive?”
A week ago, someone very close to me rejected reading an article that I forwarded by saying “I scrolled to the end, and there were no suggestions. I won’t read any more rants.”
Solid. Very solid thinking.
So, here is my short list of how we fix what’s ailing us as a society, in a big picture way – meaning, nothing focused on a specific interest group. Here’s how we make things better, more predictable, more fair, more reasonable for everyone:
1. Repeal Gramm-Leach-Blilley; restore Glass-Steagall in full. Require that all financial instruments and derivatives be fully regulated and traded only on fully regulated indices and marketplaces.
2. Legislate very clearly that corporations are not possessed of any of the rights that humans have.
3. Restore the tax rates to their levels pre-1981.
4. Tax financial instrument speculation in exactly the same was as gambling winnings are taxed.
5. Require that commodity speculation be limited to what the party can actually deliver; that commodity contracts be restricted to what can actually be delivered.
6. Eliminate any and all diversions or gifts of taxpayer resources to for-profit corporations at all levels; state, Federal and local. Never use tax money to support, promote or benefit for-profit corporations.
7. Expand Medicare to cover everyone; allow for-profit insurance companies to service claims
8. Restore the Fairness Doctrine in full, and require that the FCC enforces it
9. Restore the Equal Time rule
10. Overrule Citizens United; bar any and all commercial political speech
11. Eliminate most tax credits; eliminate all refundable tax credits
12. Require that any and all legislation beyond a given amount of spending (aggregated over the life of the proposed program) be matched with either a tax to support it or a fee to support it
13. Create a carbon tax that applies to the carbon cost of transporting manufactured goods to our country
14. Require that any human supplied service delivered by persons living outside this country to this country be subject to the same work rules, wage rules, overtime rules and reporting as a human delivering that service in this country would be regulated by, or tax the service to equalize the cost of those services
15. Require that US corporations manufacturing abroad to import goods in the United States that could have been manufactured here be subject to the same work rules, wage rules, safety rules, environmental rules, overtime rules and reporting or be taxed to equalize the cost of those imports
16. Require that all corporations that are based in this country pay tax on their operations.
17. Make taxable as regular income the distribution or use of political campaign funds for personal benefit or support.
18. Ban the spending of personal funds to support a political campaign of one’s self or one’s family.
19. Make criminal, with significant penalty, the payment of any sum, benefit, quid pro quo to any candidate for, or holder of, a government job. Create a five year exclusion for movement between any government job and a related, private sector job.
20. Ban corporate lobbying, or, in the alternative, require that consumer or non-partisan groups with an opposing opinion are provided equal funding and access to lobby by the for-profit enterprise that seeks to lobby.
21. Severely restrict the registration and operation of “not for profit” enterprises. Require that no less than 70% of their raised or donated funds be spent on programs consistent with their goals.
22. Enact legislation that will, upon the violation of any number of these “for the people” rules by a for-profit corporation where the violation(s) threaten the economic health of the nation, forfeit the entire enterprise to the government for restructuring.
23. Strictly limit bonus and option pay for top executives through top marginal tax rates. Require that no top executive be paid any bonus on the merger or sale of the company to another.
24. Require that all companies over a given size based on gross revenue, whether publicly or privately traded, be subject to the disclosure and accounting requirements of publicly traded companies.
25. Restrict Department of Defense spending to only that which the DoD requests and has approved; end forever systems that the DoD must accept because lobbyists and politicians have insisted upon it.
Okay, that’s it. We do these things, and our treasuries will be awash in money in no time flat. We then fix the infrastructure, and we can start cutting taxes. AFTERWARDS.