Reich's 10-Point Program to Reduce Inequality

THE DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST

The Daily Strategist

 
January 15, 2014

Reich's 10-Point Program to Reduce Inequality

by staff, January 15, 2014 06:14 AM EST

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has emerged as one of the more lucid policy journalists, with a knack for translating complex economic reforms into language that connects with everyday voters, as well as policy wonks. A recent short and simple entry from his blog, via Reader Supported News, "The Lousy Jobs Report and the Scourge of Inequality" rolls out an appealing menu of ten policy reforms in this excerpt:

Businesses won't create new jobs without enough customers. But most Americans no longer have enough purchasing power to fuel that job growth.

That's why it's so important to

(1) raise the minimum wage at least to its inflation-adjusted value 40 years ago - which would be well over $10 an hour,

(2) extend unemployment benefits to the jobless,

(3) launch a major jobs program to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure,

(4) expand Medicaid to the near-poor,

(5) enable low-wage workers to unionize,

(6) rehire all the teachers, social workers, police, and other public service employees who were laid off in the recession,

(7) exempt the first $20,000 of income from Social Security payroll taxes and make up the difference by removing the cap on income subject to the tax.

And because the rich spend a far smaller proportion of their earnings than the middle class and poor, pay for much of this by

(8) closing tax loopholes that benefit the rich such as the "carried interest" tax benefit for hedge-fund and private-equity managers,

(9) raise the highest marginal tax rate, and

(10) impose a small tax on all financial transactions.

One of the major political parties adamantly refuses to do any of this, and the other doesn't have the strength or backbone to make them.

Make a ruckus.

If a war on inequality is indeed the Democrats' best strategy for 2014-16, then Reich's agenda makes good sense.