And then use the income from that to distribute wealth through things like single payer health care, affordable housing etc. So the basic needed expenses don't take up such a large portion of the budget for middle income households.
Also: stronger unions.
Who do you think makes the decision regarding the way the government will collect its money? Ans: The people with 100 million dollars or more. They pay to elect their Senator and Congressional Rep who will create the laws they are instructed to create.
So, when the wealthy told the politicians who should pay the money to operate the government, what did they decide? Ans: People who worked for a living. People who had incomes. A tax on "income".
The very thing the truly wealthy did not have unless they choose to have an income.
And, the usual way wealthy have to pay tax is when they sell an asset, such as stock. Now there are two things to know about that:
1. Why would an ultra wealthy person sell stock? Ans: To take advantage of an opportunity for that money to make an even greater annual return than it is currently making.
2. That is still not taxed as income. It is taxed as a long term capital gain. With a maximmum tax rate of 20%.
So, their money is moved from one asset to an even better asset, and they are only taxed at a flat tax of 20% on the profit when the asset is sold before it is invested into the better investment. And of course, they only do this if the proposed new investment is so much better than the way the money is currently invested, that it is going to make overwhelming financial profit after the 20% tax is paid (in other words, this is all by choice - unlike the income tax paid by the workers).
Lobbying should be illegal. All political donations should be capped at a reasonable level and should only be able to be done personally.
Better unions will never work in the US these days because of deindustrialization and globalization, can't really have leverage when your sector is getting smaller. There's also just no more 'union culture'.
I'm not persuaded that this is true. They discourage investment in the stock market, and inhibit a venture capital model, but I think they encourage internal investment. I don't think it's a coincident that places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC thrived during the high marginal tax regime, nor that back then companies were more apt to train and retain skilled labor: when C-class and stock-holders are taxed at a high rate there are more-useful things to do with profits than eye-watering compensation packages and stock buybacks.
IMHO we would have to probably have small tax on revenue rather than profit - so only something similar to VAT but smaller and without deduction. VAT seems the most honest tax since you pay it only for what you buy. Also maybe property tax but with cumulative different tax brackets (0 tax for first property). 50% average yearly rental tax for each property that is being empty more than 3 months a year - just to discourage and deflate real estate bubble.
Eventually we probably need overproduction for goods at the bottom of maslov piramid: shelter, energy, food, water, transportation. Robotics revolution maybe is some hope.
For the US specifically I disagree. The massive size of the US consumer market puts so much power in the hands of the government, that they are currently not using. Probably due to lobbying from corporations that try to prevent just that.
Agree on overproduction. This could also be handled by government subsidies or straight up government investment. Eg. solar and wind investment doesn't have a good ROI anymore for private companies. Maybe the state should be the provider of energy, so we can get very cheap and sustainable power.
