Re:Everyone loves Bernie Sanders. Except, it seems, the Demo...
by candiodari on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @06:30PM
(#13926892)
> Raise taxes on the rich, and invest the money in infrastructure, schools, and civic life. You want to push up wages, you hire people directly.
Coming from a country with a vastly bigger public sector than the US, allow me to say : no. Thanks. Don't do this. I'm not against public sector jobs, but I am against the government (or large companies supported by the government) taking care of anything that can realistically be done by anyone else.
> Shore up Social Security by lifting the contribution cap. People who make $120k/year are not working-class, and they can afford to pay taxes so that the working class can afford to retire in dignity. The more elderly working-class people can retire, the more jobs are freed up.
The numbers don't work. And the numbers are positively disastrous starting 10 years or so in the future. This is generally true about your raise taxes ideas.
When push comes to shove, money represents value. The only way to provide more goods and services to the elderly is to have everyone work more, produce more. Tax raises cannot affect this, in fact they make it harder.
But it would depend on what tax to raise. I think I'd most like either a direct wealth tax, or a land value tax. With serious punishments for cheating with undeclared wealth or colluding with government to lower land value. Move the tax burden away from labour.
> Strengthen labor unions. Revamp the Taft-Hartley Act to bring back the powers organized labor had in the mid-1930s New Deal period. Pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
I like the idea of strengthening unions. Sounds like a great idea.
> Break up all monopolies and oligopolies. This is a convenient alternative to nationalization.
Whilst I definitely agree in the case of Comcast, I'm not sure this would work well in general.
> Universal overtime pay for everyone who works more than 40 hours/week, no matter their job role. If they work for a living, they get overtime pay.
Sounds like a good idea, except perhaps that it's too easy to cheat rules like this.
Coming from a country with a vastly bigger public sector than the US, allow me to say : no. Thanks. Don't do this. I'm not against public sector jobs, but I am against the government (or large companies supported by the government) taking care of anything that can realistically be done by anyone else.
> Shore up Social Security by lifting the contribution cap. People who make $120k/year are not working-class, and they can afford to pay taxes so that the working class can afford to retire in dignity. The more elderly working-class people can retire, the more jobs are freed up.
The numbers don't work. And the numbers are positively disastrous starting 10 years or so in the future. This is generally true about your raise taxes ideas.
When push comes to shove, money represents value. The only way to provide more goods and services to the elderly is to have everyone work more, produce more. Tax raises cannot affect this, in fact they make it harder.
But it would depend on what tax to raise. I think I'd most like either a direct wealth tax, or a land value tax. With serious punishments for cheating with undeclared wealth or colluding with government to lower land value. Move the tax burden away from labour.
> Strengthen labor unions. Revamp the Taft-Hartley Act to bring back the powers organized labor had in the mid-1930s New Deal period. Pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
I like the idea of strengthening unions. Sounds like a great idea.
> Break up all monopolies and oligopolies. This is a convenient alternative to nationalization.
Whilst I definitely agree in the case of Comcast, I'm not sure this would work well in general.
> Universal overtime pay for everyone who works more than 40 hours/week, no matter their job role. If they work for a living, they get overtime pay.
Sounds like a good idea, except perhaps that it's too easy to cheat rules like this.