Civil Discourse

[12yearplan]

F'em, now take em out:

6 Steps to Restore Democracy & Defund the GOP
Reagan defunded the Democratic Party in 1981: And, really, it’s just a case of “turnabout is fair play.”

Yesterday I told you how the Republican Party is animated by one single force: greed.

And greed in modern society is all about money. Which is why money is how you take down the Republican Party.

To maintain their greed, the Republican Party has kept all kinds of good things from us, from healthcare to unionization to education to the ability to start a small business for yourself, your family and the future. All that has been eaten alive by their greed.

For Democrats to defund and thus defeat the Republican Party, all they have to do is put into place a few straightforward “good government” steps, all things that should happen in any case:

End Red State welfare. Kentucky gets $2.41 from the federal government for every tax dollar they send to Washington DC, giving Mitch McConnell billions in blue-state tax money to shower on his voters and maintain his power. Most other Red States are similarly “taker” states. So let’s fight for a law limiting states to no more than $1.50 for every dollar they send to DC in tax revenues and they have to pay for everything else by taxing their own in-state wealthy people. Call it Welfare Reform!

End corporate welfare that gets recycled to GOP politicians. This includes $600 billion a year to fossil fuel companies, about a trillion a year we give to Big Pharma (including forbidding Medicare from negotiating drug prices), and government subsidies to massive insurance companies like the “Medicare Advantage” scam that puts individual seniors and the entire Medicare system at risk.

End corporate monopolies that fund the GOP. Break up giant corporations and make America safe again for small businesses, which build local economies. From utilities to tech to banking and retail, giant monopolies rip off working-class Americans to the tune of an average $5000 per-family per-year, and use some of that money to fund Republican politicians. (Breaking up monopolies is actually good for both the nation and the companies themselves: when Nixon & SCOTUS in 1974 initiated the breakup of AT&T into 7 regional companies and Lucent, completed in 1984, it actually increased shareholder value and led to an innovation explosion.)

Bring back Eisenhower’s 91% top tax bracket to restore the middle class that votes Democratic. America’s strongest economy was 1950 to 1980, with a top tax bracket of 91% to 74%. We built highways, schools, hospitals, and put men on the moon. CEOs averaged only 30x the pay their employees took. Democrats ran virtually everything, even in what we now call Red States. Then the Supreme Court changed the rules of the game, money flooded the GOP in 1980, Reagan cut that top bracket to 25%, and the billionaires it produced continue to pour cash into the GOP.

Impose Elizabeth Warren’s 2% tax on great fortunes and use it to fund healthcare and education for working-class voters. Average Americans pay a wealth tax every year: it’s the property tax on their largest store of wealth, their homes. That annual wealth/property tax pays for schools, libraries, police, fire and other essential infrastructure. Billionaires, like average homeowners, should pay their fair share of the cost of the commons through a similar annual tax on their money bins and other investments.

Reverse Citizen’s United to end the GOP’s campaign money from corporations, SuperPACs and billionaires’ ability to skew our politics. We did this in the 1970s after the Nixon bribery scandals, but the Supreme Court blew it up, saying that money was speech. There are multiple ways around that, and the Democratic Party should make this job one. (HR1 is a great start!)

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