{"id":3918,"date":"2011-01-23T10:22:46","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T18:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3918"},"modified":"2011-01-23T10:22:46","modified_gmt":"2011-01-23T18:22:46","slug":"give-main-street-a-fair-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/23\/give-main-street-a-fair-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Main Street a Fair Deal!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201crecovery\u201d seems well on the way.  Stocks are up.  Banksters are bonusing more than ever before.  Corporations have ready cash to invest.  The problem, of course, is that unless you\u2019re rich, it doesn\u2019t make any difference where you live.  For you, everything is going up except your income.  We have a Wall Street recovery with no evidence that the benefits will, or reasons why the benefits should, trickle down.  Republican regimes should have taught us by now that \u201ctrickle down\u201d always means \u201cgush up\u201d.  Robert Reich has written an excellent editorial with suggestions for Barack Obama\u2019s SOTU speech that resembles plans that I have submitted here.  If Obama takes his advice, or mine, which I doubt, I respectfully suggest that a toilet be placed under every Republican in the chamber to prevent an environmental catastrophe of draconian proportions.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"23Reich\"PRESIDENT OBAMA will have to devote a big part of his State of the Union address to the economy, but which economy? <\/p>\n

Corporate profits are up, in part because of reduced costs, especially payrolls, so jobs and wages remain in the doldrums<\/strong>. People with lots of financial assets or who are deemed \u201ctalent\u201d by large companies are enjoying a solid recovery, but most Americans continue to struggle. In order for the public to understand what must be done, Mr. Obama has to be clear about what has happened and why. <\/p>\n

The Great Recession accelerated trends that started three decades ago: outsourcing abroad, automating work, converting full-time employees to temps and contractors, undermining unions and getting wage and benefit concessions from remaining workers<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Mr. Obama should point out that the United States economy is now more than twice the size it was in 1980, but the real median wage has barely budged<\/strong>; that in the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of Americans got about 9 percent of total income, while by the start of the Great Recession the richest received more than 23 percent; that wealth is now even more concentrated<\/strong>. And the economy is bogged down because most Americans, unable to borrow as before, no longer have the purchasing power to get it moving again. <\/p>\n

The president should make it clear that corporations aren\u2019t to blame; they\u2019re meant to make profits. Nor is it the fault of the rich who have played by the rules<\/strong>. But he should stress that a future with no jobs or lousy jobs for most Americans is not sustainable \u2014 not even for American corporations, whose long-term profitability depends on broad-based domestic demand. <\/p>\n

The solution is to give average Americans a better economic deal<\/strong>. For starters, he should propose to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (essentially, a wage subsidy) all the way up through the middle class. And he should suggest making the tax system more progressive<\/strong>: The rate on the $50,000 to $90,000 income bracket should be cut to 10 percent; on the $90,000 to $150,000 bracket, to 20 percent; on the $150,000 to $250,000 bracket, to 30 percent. Make up the revenue by increasing taxes on the $250,000 to $500,000 bracket, to 40 percent; from $500,000 to $5 million, to 50 percent; and anything over $5 million, to 60 percent. Tax capital gains the same as ordinary income. <\/p>\n

In addition, he should call for strengthening unions by increasing penalties on employers who illegally deter them<\/strong>. And he should make college affordable by allowing federal loans to be repaid as 10 percent of earnings for the first 10 years of full-time employment… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say that I agree with all his ideas.  He omits help for America\u2019s most needy, the people who have been most harmed by the Republican recession.  There is no indication that there will ever be sufficient openings to provide jobs for all who are willing to work.  Therefore, to provide for the general well being, the federal government must either provide work in community service or provide a decent standard of living to those who cannot find work and a decent standard of living for those unable to work.  I also prefer an educational system under which anyone who so chooses may have an education at taxpayer expense as high as their ability merits, to be paid back with their choice of community or military service, while receiving a decent income, the length of which depends on the level of education received.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201crecovery\u201d seems well on the way.  Stocks are up.  Banksters are bonusing more than ever before.  Corporations have ready cash to invest.  The problem, of course, is that unless you\u2019re rich, it doesn\u2019t make any difference where you live.  For you, everything is going up except your income.  We have a Wall Street recovery […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}