NorthHawk wrote:The Dems have to play the R's game and can start with the Trump tax cuts.
It's been reported that 75% of those cuts went to the top earners (most wealthy) so Biden needs to announce early that they will keep the trillion dollar cuts, but change them
so the majority of wage earners get 75% of that trillion dollars. So for instance if those cuts saved someone $1000 per year, they will now save $3000 - or put it in monthly
numbers and say if someone was saving $100/month in tax under the Trump plan, they would now save $300. This would do the following:
Economically
More money will be spent in the economy when it begins to really recover after covid. People who have an extra $200 will probably spend it at their local store or buy a new fridge or stove
or car thus generating more economic activity and helping small and medium sized business. This would have a huge impact not unlike a stimulus package except it would be more impactful
on the economy but not as much on the stock market in the early days as people begin to pay off some debts along with purchases.
Working people are more likely to spend their money and I do believe in demand driven economics. I don't believe in supply side economics unless the taxes are insanely high like back when they were 70 to 90 percent. I call supply side economics "Field of Dreams" economic because the idea seems to be "build it and they will come." Where as demand side economics works much better as working people have a tendency to spend more of their money on consumption which will drive business to pursue that extra cash in the pockets of consumers to expand their bottom lines. I like lower taxes for all ultimately, but working people could use some serious tax relief love.
Politically
It would help the Dems in Georgia and also address the concerns people in trumpworld are worried about with the Dems raising taxes. This could help ease some tensions and maybe
limit some of the fringe support for DJT thus making their impact less. They could also start painting the R's as puppets of the very rich and not a party of the common people when
they oppose it.
They've been doing this for years and it works sometimes, but not a lot of the time.
What Dems need to understand is that a lot of working people make money off the stock market and investments. In fact, there is no better vehicle for expanding the personal wealth of even a working person than the stock and property market. The cost of stock market and property investing has dropped so far due to technology and innovation that everyone is able to do it at every income level. Even a bum on the street can invest in the stock market with his phone and a Robin Hood account.
This is part of what I'm talking about when I say the Dems and Republicans are both stuck in the 80s and aren't paying attention to changing technology and demographic trends. Right now millennials and the up and coming generations are investing more and more in the stock market because apps like Robin Hood along with social media like Youtube, Discord, and Facebook are being used to build massive investor networks of all ages that enjoy investing in the stock market and building their wealth. It would be very smart of the Democrats to ensure that any policies they implement do not hit the massive investor networks across all age groups that are more motivated to vote than almost any other group because they more than anyone else can see the direct impact of tax changes on their investment accounts as soon as they happen.
It would be smart of the Dems to not employ tax policies that damage business growth to the point that all these Robin Hood, 401k, IRAs, and the like take huge hits because of over-taxing wealthy people thinking they are the only ones participating in the stock market and looking to grow their wealth. Any pushing of wealth as bad and wealthy people bad won't go over well with a great many Americans. It's an outdated and outmoded idea that isn't keeping up with modern technological and demographic trends at all.
Playing the Republicans game
When changing the tax code also add in an extra 1 or 1.5% tax on those making $480,000 or more and when the R's object, sell it to the people as them not caring about the workers
and are more concerned that someone making $41000 per month has to pay an extra $100 per month in taxes that would have otherwise gone to offshore bank accounts. It might just
swing the Georgia Senate runoff in favor of the Dems. That extra 1-1.5% tax revenue could be sold as paying down the debt and paying for infrastructure improvements/replacements along with some tax cuts for small
and medium sized business.
The government does better with a divided Congress. I want a Republican Senate to make sure the Dems and Republicans come to accords with both sides representing their voting blocs forcing negotiation. Historically speaking, our economy tends to do best when this occurs.
I'm all for working folk paying less in taxes, then again I'm for everyone paying less in taxes. Government are notorious for inefficient use of money and resources. Which is why even when a government agency makes some great discovery, they often hand it off to private equity markets to expand the economy as the private companies do that far better that public entities with rare exception.
If I were in charge of the government, I would move away from the ideas you present above as they are outdated. This idea of pitting the poor against the rich is about as useful to America as pitting people against each other based on race. Pointless and gets us nowhere.
Where do we need to change economically truly?
1. Medical: Medicine needs to be decoupled from your job. We need to set up our medical system so that it supports our capitalist system. Having medicine tied to a job is reducing the ability of Americans own their labor and thus take advantage of the free markets. If a person can't take a risk to start a business or change jobs taking time off to go to school because his medical is tied to him constantly working, then this reduces the ability of an American to expand their wealth. We need to make sure medical is secure for Americans with or without a job, so that they increase competition in the workplace and their ability to acquire skills and invest without worrying about medical coverage for themselves and their family. Companies should not be able to use medical insurance and the lack of it to force Americans on a hamster wheel of their creation.
This would allow more free-lancing, temporary work, and the like which would make American employment more fluid, so that it was less necessary for an American to have to be employed at the same place for most of their life.
2. Property: Property needs to be rethought. People having to spend 30 years of their life paying off a property is rubbish. Then having to pay high rents in taxation to the government after spending a usually huge sum of money on a 30 year alone that could have been better spent accumulating retirement, investing in other areas of the economy, paying for education, and the like is no good. We should be working on limiting the excessive cost of property aka shelter. A home is a basic human need. If we can reduce the amount of effort and money a person has to put into obtaining a piece of property, then that additional work and income not spent on acquiring and maintaining property allows Americans to use that money and time in a more productive fashion to benefit from their labor.
Over the years two of the biggest factors holding back Americans from investing and taking more risks or time on career or business development is lack of affordable health insurance and buying and maintaining property. These things take up too much time and too much money trapping Americans in a life that makes capitalism seem less attractive and more of a rat race de facto wage slavery than it was meant to be. We are in essence socialized through corporations right now and the major reasons are so much of our compensation is tied to a job with a corporation that makes it so the corporation owns our labor and not us. And that isn't capitalism, that's socialism through corporations. It's something we should be dismantling.
And as far as inciting tensions between upper and lower earners, I think that is a bad way to go. I think we should be focused more on what we want as a standard of living and less on wealth inequality. Once we determine a good standard of living level, then we can let the market pursue how to do that most efficiently and effectively as they are doing. The market always seems to be able to take what was once an expensive item of the wealthy and bring the cost down so the masses can own the item increasing their standard of living like they have done with cell phones, cars, tv, and electricity. That is where our focus should be. Setting high standards for standard of living, then letting the market figure out how to get that done.
That is where I work from to make life better for all in America and open up opportunity for people of every income level across all groups.
