The very rich and the very poor

By Walter F. Rice

The greatest issue of our time, which will not be solved by the next election, are the great growing class disparities that our econonmic and political policies and system are exacerbating.

I see huge social problems that we are not addressing while we have great resources to solve them. I submit that we can solve these problems, except for the fact that this country is driven by ideology. It is not driven by democracy and it is not driven for the ordinary people, and it ought to be. Our political process is now driven by huge mmoney, that ordinary people do not have. By giving rich people unlimited access and power over the media, because of the money they have, we are actually creating a very undemocartic society.

Our society is becoming very undemocratic and very unfair to the many left out, and to many people of good will, and there are possible answers. The wealth of the very rich could be redistributed for the common benefit, and for the needs of those who need our attention who are being left out. We should at least return to some of the spirit of the New Deal that we have forgotten. We could also entertain some new ideas. One such proposal, that I understand exists in a very limited way in some countries, namely Germany, is a welath tax. It is not a tax on corporations themselves, so it would not hinder the productivity of corporations by taking from their operating needs. It is a tax on individuals only for their wealth, and it does include the wealth of shares they own from corporations. According to Molly Ivins, Germany has a 3% wealth tax. we could use a wealth tax from the super rich to help fund universal health care, or housing for the homeless, or universal good education opportunities, or for drug treatment, or adult jobs training, or liveable wages for everyone. We could make it an annual, say 40% for wealth over $50 Billion, 30% over 10 Billion, 20% over 1 Billion, 10% over 100 Million, 5% over 20 Million, 3% over 5 Million, and 1% over 1 Million. What we would be doing that would be good is we would be working to reduce the wealth gap and therefore making our country freer and more democratic for everyone, and we would be working on bring the good life to all of our people. Of course there are other ways to reduce the wealth gap and make for a freer country, but most significant of these would not come from above, as this one does, but from such things as building and empowering labor unions.