I'm not going to touch Social Security, because frankly I'm not very concerned about Social Security. Right now it looks as if that program is just fine for the next couple of decades -- and when's the last time you saw any economic forecast that was good for more than a week?
I'm not going to worry about providing some arcane system of incentives for hiring, because multiple CBO studies have shown these incentives to provide little return for the investment, and frankly the government is already dangling so many carrots for business that it's a wonder we're not overrun with rabbits.
Nope, I'm just going to root around in my back here and find... hey, what's that? Hmm, looks like a stick. Remember those?
Here's the plan: I propose that we raise the tax rate on the top 1% by 5%. Per month.
Not 5% a month forever, of course. Just until that top 1% shows signs of climbing down from their record mounds of jewels and gold and using that money to either drive up demand or hire more people. Then we stop. I predict that this will take... one month.
This may not sound like a very serious plan, and you may have some (quite legitimate) ideas about how it would work. There's nothing really magic about 5%. We could do 10%. Or maybe just jump straight to where the rates were under Eisenhower. Those are details we can work out later. I'm flexible.
Just so long as you remember that:
- Decreasing taxes at the top does not provide incentive to spend. It provides incentive to hoard. Low taxes on the extremely wealthy do not drive the growth of the economy or the expansion of employment. What they create is the incentive for a very few to accumulate vast wealth. Which creates an imbalance, declining demand, and reduced opportunities for everyone -- including at the top.
- There's no connection between being extremely rich and creating jobs. Just as many, if not more, people became extremely rich by destroying jobs. Ask Jack Welch. Productivity does not have to be the stalking horse of job destruction, but in a society where short term gains are everything, the ax man gets fat.
- Low tax rates in the United States have not promoted jobs "staying home." More jobs have moved out of the country as tax rates have fallen. The two are at best very loosely coupled.
- Low tax rates for the wealthy don't create a "rising tide." They don't raise all boats. Instead, they are a flash flood that scuttles the economy for the benefit of a few. In this flood median income, the one that most people makes, actually declines. Do it long enough, and the economy drowns.
- Tax rates at the top of the income scale are at record lows. The number of American children going hungry are at record highs. This is not a coincidence.
- Promoting the idea that rich people need another handout doesn't make you a champion of opportunity. It makes you a quisling for oligarchs.