Ten Steps to Prosperity: Step 8: Tax the very rich more (dictatorship warning)

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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders..

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There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government has the unlimited ability to create its own sovereign currency, the dollar, which it does ad hoc, simply by spending.

Thus, the federal government neither needs, uses, nor even retains tax dollars. The tax dollars you send to the federal government disappear from the money supply and so functionally are destroyed.

(This is unlike state and local tax dollars, which remain in the money supply, are retained by the state and governments, and are necessary for state and local government spending.)

Because federal taxes leave the money supply, they reduce Gross Domestic Product, and they negatively affect the entire economy. Every dollar you send to the federal government is a dollar removed from the economy, impoverishing the economy.

Every dollar the federal government deficit spends is added to the money supply, enriching the economy.

Deficit reduction (aka “austerity), depletes our economy. Applying deficit reduction to grow our economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. 

All but one of the Ten Steps to Prosperity — this one — involve either federal tax reduction or federal spending increases. They all — but this one — increase the money supply, and thereby, grow the economy.

Since all the federal tax dollars paid by anyone, including the rich, disappear from the money supply, and therefore are recessive, why does this step, Step 8., involve increasing taxes on the rich?

The single most important problem facing America and the world — even more important than the suicidal push to reduce the money supply — is the large and growing Gap between the rich and the rest.

That large and growing Gap is a direct threat to Democracy, for it gives the rich excessive power to bribe our politicians, to own our media, and even to influence universities and their economists.

In short, the Gap facilitates the dictatorship of the very rich.

We see it happening again and again in America, with the Supreme Court repeatedly expanding the 1st Amendment’s free speech rights to include greater amounts of money.

Freedom of spending grew from Buckley v. Valeo (limits on election spending are unconstitutional), to First National Bank of Boston v Bellotti (corporations can contribute to ballot initiative campaigns) to Citizens United v FEC (corporations and unions can contribute unlimited funds to political campaigns).

Although some technical spending limits still remain, the true function of these decisions is to give the rich the unlimited power to influence not only elections but the law.

That is the definition of a dictatorship: Complete control over the law.

And we have come dangerously close to crossing that line if we are not already there.

In a dictatorship, the people are powerless. All branches of government answer to one man or one small group.

In a dictatorship, the presidency, the congress, the supreme court and the local governors are dominated by one party, and that party is dominated by one man.

Though supposedly above partisan politics, the courts become political organizations, seldom ruling against the dominant party.

A dictator typically takes action against any news media that disagree with him or which publish unflattering stories.

This action can include lawsuits, expulsion from meetings, claims that the media provides “fake news,” and other forms of disparagement.

It can graduate to arrests, imprisonment or other draconian reprisals.

As it true with all dictatorships, those close to the dictator are the rich and privileged. Laws don’t apply to them, except when they fall into disfavor, in which case they are summarily dismissed.

Though those appointed to high office are in sympathy with the dictator, they often are incompetent or disagree with the putative purpose of the office.

The assigned head of a veteran’s benefit organization might have no knowledge of veteran’s affairs or organization skills; the head of an ecology department might deny global warming; the head of an education department might oppose educating the poor; the head of a justice department might be a bigot opposed to justice.

In a dictatorship, family members are given high posts, and those close to the dictator reap fortunes from their influence. The dictator becomes massively wealthy from the laws he creates.

Dictators claim there is an emergency — a danger only they can deal with.

One commonality among dictatorship beginnings: The future dictator often is greeted with open arms as the person who will save the people from some nemesis, whether it be poverty, aliens, or a previous dictator.

Dictators facilitate this attitude by creating scapegoats: Foreigners, people of a certain religion, color or belief, or other politicians. Hatred and fear are the dictator’s greatest weapons.

Hatred and fear allow the people to blame the scapegoat for their misery rather than blaming the dictator — or themselves.

In accepting the dictator, the people do not realize they are creating their own hardship. Later, when it is too late, and they have surrendered their power to the devil, do they and their children begin a seemingly endless period of suffering?

When they lose all ability to extricate themselves from the pit they have dug, the people enter a period of “hopeless justification.” They tell themselves there is nothing they can do about it, and anyway, things could be worse or were worse in the past.

As their lives deteriorate, they stop trying, stop hoping, and stop thinking.

Though dictatorship thrives on an income/wealth/power Gap between the chosen few and the general populace, it begins with any one of the Gaps: Income, wealth, or power.

The process is:

1. A Gap is created
2. The people feel the negative effects of the Gap
3. Resentment builds
4. A savior promises to narrow the Gap
5. The people give the savior their power
6. Too late, the people realize the savior has enslaved them.
7. The dictator demands ever more appeasements from the ever more destitute and powerless people.

Because dictatorships always begin with a Gap, our currently large and growing Gap is the greatest danger to our democracy and our lifestyles.

Narrowing the Gap requires not just lifting the bottom but trimming the top.

It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning more than $1 billion a year.

Pick any acceptable Gap (100 to 1? 1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive an unrealistic boost to narrow the Gap to an acceptable level.

To trim the top, Step 8 proposes that we increase tax rates on the very rich, and not just the rates, but the overall tax system. Their income that is not taxed or lightly taxed should be fully taxed; their inheritances should be taxed without exceptions.

Unfortunately, I do not have the background to suggest exactly which taxes should be increased or by how much. Taxation is a massively complex process that always has implications beyond mere money retrieval.

That is why this step comes late in the series and is more of an overall direction than a specific proposal. I suggest that those who understand taxation devise changes in the current system with the intention of narrowing the Gap and not as a money-raising process.

Unless we understand and act against the growing Gap, we will continue the way we are going and slide deeper, ever deeper, into the black hole of dictatorship.

America will cease to be a democratic nation.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY