Here is one guys take on what the LEFT should do...
The problem for progressives is that bad ideas beat no ideas, every time. Progressives haven't come up with anything fresh in a generation. So let's be clear. Policy initiatives are "action that communicates." Let me give you some examples. We'll start with the tame stuff, and move to some really radical ideas -- that you can sell. [The cheap labor cons don't shy away from proposing "hard sell" ideas. Why should we?]
The Full Employment Initiative. No progressive has come up with a meaningful anti-poverty measure since Lyndon Johnson's Job Corps. And we do a lot of braying about poverty. Try this on for size. One word -- central to our defense of social democratic mixed economies. That word is "infrastructure." And brother, do we need some. We're talking roads, bridges, new schools, port facilities -- secure against terrorists, doncha know -- sewers, waste disposal, environmental clean-up, you name it. We've got plenty of work to do. And hey, we've got plenty of people who need work. Guess what. We're going to put them to work. Does it sound like "workfare?" Kind of. But "workfare" is bullshit. It basically replaces meager welfare benefits with meager wages. Not much of an improvement -- though I guess we get something for our money. My plan puts people to work at a "living wage" -- ten bucks an hour [as of today] plus healthcare and educational benefits. Who do we put to work? Everybody who shows up and wants a job. [We can impose some accountability, too. We pay well. But you have to show up, and put in a day's work -- or we will can your ass, and make you ineligible for rehire for some period of time.]
Watch the "free market" at work. Just like that, we have "full employment." Not only that, the wage scale just went up -- way up. Why? Government infrastructure is the "employer of last resort." The pay is good, and so are the benefits. In other words, Walmart's coulees would rather have one of these jobs -- which means Walmart had better raise its pay scale and the benefits it offers. No more 30 hour a week employees, with no benefits, earning 6 bucks an hour. That's a thing of the past. Expensive? It will pay for itself. How? The increased wage scale increases the tax base. You might pay for it without raising tax rates at all. And even if there is some cost to it, hey, we're getting infrastructure -- which creates economic opportunity. In other words, it's not a "give away." It appeals to "Joe Sixpack" who doesn't mind giving a guy a "hand up" -- if there is some accountability in there somewhere. It doesn't hurt that a rising "wage floor" boosts his own paycheck. Meanwhile, the rising wage scale, boosts disposable income on the bottom, creating a demand driven economic boom -- further expanding the tax base by the way..
How will the cheap-labor cons respond? They will fight it like tigers. They don't want the wage scale going up. They don't want full employment. They don't want "bottom up" prosperity. What they want is "cheap labor." What they want is power and control in a corporate oligarchy. What they want is the "Argentinization of America." Opposing this intiative will prove it --putting them right on the spot.
The Energy Independence Intiative. Energy independence is such a "no brainer" I never have understood why Democrats don't make this their "centerpiece." What's the initiative? An "Apollo mission" level project to develop solar and other renewable energy technology. Why solar? Everything else creates greenhouse gasses. Solar power -- and other similar renewables -- also creates individual energy independence, not just national energy independence. Solar and development of other similar renewables also has the virtue of being opposed by the Republicans. You see, they like "oil dependency." Their friends in the oil business basically get a "piece of the action" on virtually everything you do that is fueled by oil -- which is damn near everything you do. That's power baby. And you know how the cheap labor cons are about power. Renewable energy breaks their monopoly. There is no good reason not invest in this technology. It is clean. It will become cheap -- the point of massive R&D into it. It is limitless. It gets us out of the middle east, completely -- not such a bad idea at this point. There is nothing not to like about it -- which makes Republican opposition to it just absurd. Which raises a rather basic, fundamental question about their whole position. Why do they oppose such an obviously necessary policy? There's no good answer -- which is why you push them onto the ropes, and beat them bloody with their stiffnecked opposition. Will they oppose it? Bet on it. It's a "can't lose" proposition.
The Small Business Tax Relief Initiative. Self employed business owners who aren't incorporated pay 15% of every dollar they earn in Social Security taxes. It's called the "self-employment" tax. Oh, it isn't every dollar. They stop paying it at $89,000 [or somewhere around there]. This means that start-up small businesses -- we're talking tradesmen and building subcontractors -- pay taxes out the ass. Who did this to them? Why, Ronald Reagan and the Republicans when they "saved" Social Security in the mid-eighties. Meanwhile, these tradesmen are now all ditto monkies, mostly behind the taxes they pay -- which Limbaugh and company blame on the Democrats. We need to give them "tax relief" by eliminating the "employees share" of FICA taxes on qualified small busineeses -- and pay for it by eliminating the $89,000 cap. Which would also solve any "solvency" problems, and lower the FICA tax burden on the middle and working class. Republicans might not oppose this one. Like I said, a lot of those tradesmen are ditto monkeys.
The Urban Homestead Act. This is actually a "give away." Just like the original homestead act -- which is why I named it this. You take publicly owned housing projects and deed them over to inner city residents on condition that the residents live in them for seven years, and improve them. This makes owners out of inner city residents, giving them a source of personal capital, and also giving them a personal financial stake in the health and prosperity of their neighborhoods. Watch how fast they chase those drug dealers out their neighborhoods. While you're at it, enact tax incentives to give smalltime slumlords an incentive to sell rather than rent.
The Manufacturing Revitalization Initiative. Want to stop outsourcing? Here's one way to do it. Require that publicly traded corporations have a defined percentage of their stock owned by the employees. Many companies already do this. The call them "ESOP's" or Employee Stock Ownership Plans [or something like that]. Your goal is to eventually have 51% ownership -- which spells "employee control." Owners don't vote themselves out of a job. Neither do they vote themselves "coulee wages" -- though they might make a short term sacrifice of pay and benefits for the long term health of the company. Either way, the phenomenon of working years for a company, only to be thrown away and left with nothing, is all over. It only applies to publicly traded corporations, by the way. "Closely held" mom and pop businesses, and entrepreneurial start ups don't need to worry about it.
Federal Reserve Reform. Turn the Federal Reserve Banks into true banks, authorizing them to deal directly with consumers. Why? To cut out the middle man -- private banks -- and lower everyone's interest payments. It also creates a potentially huge revenue stream in the form of consumer interest on home mortgages, car payments and credit card debt -- not to mention commercial loans and what they presently receive from private banks. This new revenue stream replaces some of our tax revenues, lowers consumers balance of payments by cutting their taxes, and doesn't result in any budget deficit. Some might call this a backdoor way to nationalize the banks. I deny it. [What do banks produce, by the way? Nothing. They are nothing but privatized bureaucracies, deciding who gets access to capital and who doesn't -- and siphoning off a cut of virtually every business transaction in the country. Banks aren't "private enterprise," they are economic infrastructure.]
While we're at it, we need to enact Congressional control over the Fed. Some will denounce "injecting politics" into the Fed's decision making. Bullshit. The Fed makes political decisions everyday that mostly favor the financial industry. Be ready to educate people about this. The allegely "apolitical" decisionmaking of the Fed is all part of the ideology that "economic forces" are "scientific." More bullshit. The Fed makes decisions everyday that affect the very economic air we breathe. Whose bright idea was it to take such fundamental decision making away from representatives of the people? Answer: JP Morgan and his finance capital cronies. Get it?
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