A Modest Labor Day Proposal

Paul Krugman's most recent New York Times column, which he had the good taste to publish yesterday, on my birthday, effectively paints a grim portrait of Labor Day in the 21st century, one in which capitalists are the true "workers," and labor is treated as a gang of "moochers" who would have nothing without the willingness of capitalists to act like riverboat gamblers with the fruits of labor's hard work.  But that's because Professor Krugman is an economist, someone who is trained to think, and to use facts to do it.  It's a pity that our political leaders aren't inclined to do likewise.

Apart from the capitalists and the political class, then, the rest of us are, for the moment, left to talk amongst ourselves.  With that in mind, and since it is Labor Day, here is my modest proposal for getting things back to they way they used to be.

A few principles, first.  We are a country of parasites, in fact.  But the parasites aren't the people who work for a living.  It's the lottery players on Wall Street and the politicians they pay who do nothing.  They, after all, are the ones who do what true parasites do:  attach themselves to the host and feed off of it in such a way that the host never notices.  This is what has happened to our economy and politics, thanks to thirty years of reflexive Republican voting that was supposed to "balance out" the supposed statism of New Deal-Great Society politics.  The state is alive and well; it's merely been restructured to conform the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.

There is no greater evidence of that than the fact that payroll taxes are stolen from a successful program, Social Security, to pay for two unsuccessful program, tax cuts for the rich and the Iraq war.  Social Security is often unfairly derided as a Ponzi scheme; supply-side economics is the real Ponzi scheme.  Had we never been afflicted with either Ronald Reagan or the Bushes, Social Security would be the best-funded pension program in the world; now, it's on the verge of being auctioned off to the 1 percent--with what little security you have going along with it.

As a unintended consequence of all of this, American conservatism has effectively conceded, without having the wit to realize it, the role of the state in our economics.  Having won this concession, it is time to address the unequal economic yoke that that American conservatism has created, before it crushes America under its weight.

Which leads me to my modest proposal.

First, raise the minimum wage to $20.00 per hour, for both full-time and part time employees.  It will still be below what it would be if it had been adjusted for inflation from the very beginning.  And it will give workers a fighting chance to pay their bills.

Second, you want to eliminate Obamacare?  Fine.  Repeal it and replace it with single-payer health insurance for all Americans, which would be less costly than our present system, with or without Obamacare.

Third, replenish the Social Security trust funds and pay down the national debt in three ways:

1. Eliminate all business deductions.  If capitalism supposedly thrives without the interference of the state, let business pay their own bills without the help of the public.  God knows they can afford it.
2. Keep the existing tax rates, but tax ALL income from all sources, including foreign countries and estates;
3. Impose a transaction tax on derivatives.  If nothing else, it will slow these transactions down and reduce their impact on the economy.  It will also make the players play the game a bit more carefully.

Don't like it?  Fine.  Come up with something better.  But stop pretending that prosperity comes from letting the people with the gold make all of the rules.  And stop pretending that we're feeding off of them.  It's the other way around.  It always will be.  Unless, like Professor Krugman, you start to think, and use facts to do so.