A Populist, Progressive Budget
More than a year ago, the Progressive Caucus in the U. S. House put together what they dubbed The People’s Budget. Here, you can read that budget in its entirety.
Some of its original provisions have become moot (i.e., those involving bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan), but the budget retains these and other consequential planks:
1. Eliminate the deficit by targeting its main drivers: the causes and effects of the recent recession.
2. Train teachers and restores schools; rebuild roads and bridges and ensure that users help pay for them
3. Invest in job creation, clean energy and broadband infrastructure, housing and R&D programs
4. Create new tax brackets that range from 45% starting at $1 million to 49% for $1 billion or more. Not at all unreasonable when one considers that as recently as 1986, an individual with earnings over $1,171,580.00 paid Federal income tax at a rate of 50%.
5. Implement a progressive estate tax
6. Enact a financial crisis responsibility fee and a financial speculation tax on derivatives and foreign exchange
7. Eliminate the individual Social Security payroll cap to make sure upper income earners pay their fair share
8. Increase Social Security benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side
The People’s Budget has as its bottom line the goals of:
· Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion
· Spending cuts of $1.7 trillion
· Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion
· Public investment $1.7 trillion
Sounds like a solid plan.
Michele Petrovsky, Webmaster at Tools4Change Author of, Cathedral or Bazaar? Fix Higher Education – Teach by the Seat of Your Pants , Donkey Dharma, and Quick Guide to Linux Glen Mills, Pa.
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