Four ways to restore jobs and prosperity
The biggest question right now on Planet Washington is whether the congressional supercommittee will reach an agreement.
That鈥檚 the wrong question. Agreement or not, Washington is 聽on the road to making budget cuts that will slow the economy, increase unemployment, and impose additional hardship on millions of Americans.聽聽
The real question is how to stop this austerity train wreck, and substitute the following:聽
FIRST: no cuts before jobs are back 鈥� until unemployment is down to 5 percent. Until then, the economy needs a boost, not a cut. Consumers 鈥� whose spending is 70 percent of the economy 鈥� don鈥檛 have the money to boost the economy on their own. Their pay is dropping and they鈥檙e losing jobs.聽聽
SECOND: Make the boost big enough. 14 million Americans are out of work, and 10 million are working part time who need full-time jobs. The President鈥檚 proposed jobs program is a start but it鈥檚 tiny relative to what needs to be done. It would create fewer than 2 million jobs. We need a big jobs program 鈥� rebuilding America鈥檚 crumbling infrastructure, and including a WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps.
THIRD: To pay for this, raise taxes on the super-rich. It鈥檚 only fair. Never before has so much income and wealth been concentrated at the very top, and taxes on the top so low. Go back to the 70 percent marginal tax we had before 1980. And include more tax brackets at the top. It doesn鈥檛 make sense that any income over $375,000 is taxed at the same 35 percent, even if it鈥檚 a billion dollars. And tax all sources of income at the same rate, including capital gains.聽聽
FOURTH: Cut the budget where the real bloat is. Military spending and corporate welfare. End weapons systems that don鈥檛 work and stop wars we shouldn鈥檛 be fighting to begin with, and we save over $300 billion a year. Cut corporate welfare 鈥� subsidies and special tax breaks going to big agribusiness, big oil, big pharma, and big insurance 鈥� and we save another $100 billion.
Do you hear me, Washington? Do these four things and restore jobs and prosperity. Fail to do these, and you鈥檒l make things much, much worse.
