What appears below the fold is a detailed discussion of three center-left policy ideas that can make America a better place to live. Each of these ideas should be politically doable.
- Make Social Security's tax a progressive one
- Reform the intellectual property rights system for pharmaceuticals
- Reform health insurance in a way that leaves private companies a role but eliminates that pathologies of the current system.
The biggest single problem facing most American's today is stagnant (at best) real income. These proposals address both ends of the real income equation. The first should function to raise nominal income of the lowest quartile of income recipients. The second and third address the most persistent source of inflation in the US economy, the rising real cost of health care. Containing health care inflation will both raise current real incomes and alleviate the genuine looming problems with Medicare funding.
I call these proposals center left because they envision making markets function more efficiently by eliminating some of the current perverse incentives in current policies. At the same time, they should reduce experienced inequality.
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