In response to my post a few days ago, asking you whether you worried about the loss of Main Streets and bookstores, the decline of good jobs with good wages, and sweatshop labor -- and whether you nonetheless bought stuff through Walmart or Amazon, sought discount flights, and got the lowest-priced deals you could find regardless of where the goods came from or how they were made: Some of you said you had no choice but to shop for the lowest price because you had to stretch your dollars. You just didnt make enough money to be socially responsible. Thats understandable. Workers are consumers, and people trapped in low-wage jobs cant be expected to promote, through their purchases, an economy offering higher living standards than they themselves experience. And thats precisely the problem. More and more Americans are falling into that same trap, competing over a smaller and smaller share a total economy whose largest shares are going to an ever-smaller number. Which is why consumers cant possibly do this alone. And why we need a political movement to reverse these trends -- including, at the least, these ten essential steps: (1) a living wage and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, (2) an exemption on the first $15K of income from Social Security taxes and elimination of the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, (3) a new WPA and CCC, and major infrastructure investments, to put the long-term unemployed back to work, (4) early childhood education for all, high-quality K-12 for all, and access to affordable higher education, (5) a single-payer healthcare system, (6) an easy way to form unions through simple up-or-down votes at the workplace, (7) a higher marginal income tax on top earners, more tax brackets at the top, a wealth tax, and a tax on financial transactions; (8) a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a cap on the size of the biggest Wall Street banks, (9) a ban on gerrymandered districts, voter-suppression laws, and other means of blocking the majoritys will, and (10) reversal of Citizens United (by constitutional amendment if necessary), strict campaign-finance limits, public financing of elections, a resurrected fairness doctrine for the media, and stricter limits on the revolving door between government and industry or Wall Street. We can do all of this. Just look at what the Progressives accomplished between 1901 and 1916, or the New Dealers between 1933 and 1941, or the proponents of the Great Society in the 1960s. (If you dont think reforms like this are possible, youre part of the problem.)
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 17:15:12 +0000
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