Are you happy with Reaganomics? Trickle down economics? While the richest are getting richer by the minute, the rest of us are facing stagnant wages, rising prices and a bleak outlook for the future. As businesses make increasingly bigger profits and are paying their executives obscene salaries, the workers of America face more and more downward pressure on their income. A job used to include health insurance and a pension but because of deregulation and the free trade policies of Bush and Reagan, corporations have forced workers to pay for health insurance, if it's even offered and if you want a retirement account, you have to manage it on your own. Not that anyone has any money left over to save.
In 1914, Henry Ford paid his workers $5 a day, that was double the average wage for manufacturing jobs at the time. He did this because he wanted his workers to buy his cars. Let's try that today, we'll call it the Ford plan or Trickle up economics.
Increase the minimum wage to a level where you can live on it. This will create many more jobs.
Have employers provide health care and a pension. In addition to allowing workers to hang on to more of their hard earned money, you can bet corporations would put a lot of pressure on insurance companies to keep premiums in line and banks to provide safe and profitable investment products. A well paid populace would have money to spend and demand would increase. It's a win-win situation.
You may be asking yourself who would pay for this largesse. Businesses would. The same ones who have been using our natural resources to create goods they ship to market on rails and roads we paid for with our tax dollars. The ones who have been employing workers educated in the public schools we funded. It is high time they paid for the infrastructure our government has provided them. Where would they be today without the stable currency the United States provides or the judicial system they use to mediate disputes when negotiations break down. We probably wouldn't have to raise the tax rate, just closing the loopholes and making them pay the 35% tax due would work.
It's time to get our economy on an upward spiral, well paid workers could afford to send their kids to college and we'll have a much smarter workforce for the future. We'll need it as America, once again, becomes the world's technology leader. With less poverty comes less crime and governments will save money by shutting down unused prisons. When we all have healthcare, we will catch illnesses in the important first stages and less people will have to undergo drastic, expensive treatments. This will free up emergency rooms to handle the boating and skiing accidents that are bound to increase as Americans enjoy their new found prosperity.
It should be clear to everyone that pandering to businesses will not stimulate the economy, they are not letting any cash trickle down. It's time to reverse this and let us workers have the money, we'll spend it and get this economy moving again.