Taxes

The purpose of taxes, as I've always seen it, is to pool public funds to serve ALL the American people.  This includes defense, enforcement of federal laws, federal projects like interstate highways, social programs that help Americans of all ages, railroad infrastructure; a pause here to define infrastructure.

Infrastructure:

There has been some debate about what constitutes infrastructure; this is my opinion:  Instructure includes all the things that All Americans need to function and live in the current, modern world; what's needed to get and hold a job, to get from place to another, to communicate with our families and people we interact with, etc.  So, for me, infrastructure includes:

the physical aspects of highways; railroads; bridges; telecommunications infrastructure including satellites; some aspects of public transportation; some aspects of ports, airports and other aspects of domestic, interstate and international transportation; safety measures; assistance with funding of shared infrastructure; all of the physical needs of providing defense like physical military bases, housing, vehicles, etc.; funding assistance for public schools of all levels; and more.

Infrastructure  is a large and expensive aspect of our lives.  These are things that all Americans use if not daily, at least from time to time.  They cannot be provided in any other way than to collect funds from everyone and provide what's needed wherever it's needed.

So we have several budget categories but first revenues:  if you visit the U.S. Treasury web site, you'll the sources of revenues for our government.  The top 2 amounts are individual income taxes and social security/Medicare taxes.  What isn't entirely clear from the Treasury's web site is whether the $ numbers of revenue are projected or actual revenues and that matters.  We know what the various revenues should be but they often do not come in as expected and there is often a shortfall as in municipal governments.  That is why there is are fiscal years for all levels of government and fiscal years vary among the various levels of government and must be adjusted for transactions between them.  It's why most municipal governments base their budgets on actual revenue receipts from two years previously; to base government spending on projected revenues is definitely "living on a prayer".

Our federal budget is huge because there are over 342 million people living in the United States.  We all want various things and certain things are expected like roads to drive on and electricity for our lives and water and the Internet, etc.  It all costs money.  Thus taxes.

Minimum Tax

So, my first proposal is a minimum tax for ALL Americans that MUST be paid.  Think of it as tithing; payments to support religions or governments.  The word tithe means 1/10, one tenth.  So, my first tax proposal is that everyone living in the United States be taxed a minimum of 10% of their income whether citizens or not because they use and benefit from the myriad expenditures of our various governments.  If someone has no income, they pay $0; if someone earns only $2, 400 a yr their minimum tax is $240 that year; if some makes $1.6 million dollars a year, their minimum tax that year is $160,000.  This is a minimum tax, everybody pays it, there are no deductions from it.  There may be higher tax rates for various citizens for various reasons and there may be deductions but the minimum tax is the minimum that can be paid.  And, in case it escaped your attention, I said everyone living in the United States, citizen or not.  And, in case you are unaware, non-citizens, whether legal or not, already pay taxes and many serve in the military; I've known some.  

Sensible relief

The other tax proposal I have is that American citizens before the age of majority and seniors, would be free from income tax, including the minimum tax.  This means that young people who are intelligent and resourceful who make money before they're able to vote are free from taxes.  This means that they can make money to use for whatever legal purposes including savings for education, training, their own homes and vehicles, etc.  There would be a number of regulations and safeguards to ensure that this is legitimate personal income.

In addition, seniors, after a designated age, would be free from taxes.

A lot of study and changes in the designations of senior and age of majority would have to change.  For instance, they say that the brain develops and ages in various stages.  Should that be the determinant of how we designate how citizens are viewed for various legal matters including taxation?  That would have to be determined.

Finally, not-for-profit designations would be restored.  A not-for-profit used to have several tax designations including the familiar 501 (c)(3).  According to Wikipedia, there are 29 categories of the 501 (c) nonprofits in the U.S.  While many are very small, volunteer-operated organizations that do a variety of community work, some are vast, national organizations with enormous budgets and revenues.  When I first began grant writing, all libraries were 501(c)(3)s as were most foundations.  One of the rules of foundations is that they were required to spend 85% of their annual revenues in payments for public programs of various kinds.  There was also a rule about executive compensation.  That all disappeared and large foundations have been found to collect funds for charities that never see the money and foundation executives have been found to be paid huge salaries.  All that needs to be reviewed and revised.

One type of nonprofit is a religious entity:  a church, a synagogue, a mosque, etc.  They have been tax free from the beginning, I believe.  Things change.  I know of one church that wielded so much influence that it changed the traffic pattern in my neighborhood for the benefit of its congregation.  That is unacceptable.  I knew of another group of churches whose influence affected the zoning in a neighborhood where I used to live so that housing was eliminated so they could have a joint parking area.  Also unacceptable.  In view of such influence, and because they use publicly funded infrastructure and services just as much as the residents of the surrounding neighborhood, I feel very strongly that religious entities MUST be taxed the minimum tax.

The business of government is very large, very diverse and very complex.  As citizens our educational system should include, again, Civics classes throughout high school including some of the details of government funding and taxation.

Enough of this for now.

Accountability

We've been taught and we often read that our democracy is of, by and for the American people, but it isn't; certainly not now. And, it's gradually become less and less that over decades. 

If you've attended local municipal council meetings, you begin to understand why these intentions have evolved into something different over time.

Even at the local level, town councils represent the residents of the town and vote on what happens in the town; individual taxpayers don't vote on laws and policies.  Nobody represents me; I can tell you that.  My choices vary hugely depending on the particular issue.  While I am generally politically liberal, I am very conservative about some things.  If you think about it, it would take forever for anything to get done if everybody voted.  Elected officials would do well to be quite middle-of-the-road in voting on anything but they aren't.  In fact, like most homo sapiens, they are self-serving and want to remain in their positions so vote accordingly.  Thus the reason for term limits; to prevent individuals from remaining in office too long against the interests of the whole.

But, there are ways to keep our various levels of government responsive to the citizenry; term limits is only one way.  

Limiting the influence, power and control of the parties is another.  Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution and have no legal basis of operations.  Their function is to define a political stance, philosophy and future and nominate candidates to carry out that aim.  That's all they should do, but they have taken over elections and in raising money for campaigns, they have brought seriously intense interference and control by individuals who are not interested in democracy but only their own benefits.

One of the ways to control the money in politics is to control elections and political campaigns.  

Some of you think government controls too much.  Stop.  Look around.  Most of you who think this also don't like how most people around you live.  You complain all the time about the minutiae of your neighbors' lives as if it actually affects you other than offending your ridiculous sensibilities.  Some of you are just complainers; I'm so sorry that your life is so easily affected.  Anyway, you really want government to control things that have real impact on your life; to keep your neighbors from actually screwing up your life.  Elections are one of those things.

Look around again.  Quite honestly, many Americans would be in favor of slavery as long as they were the slave owner, not the slave.  We all want something for nothing and free labor would make everything easier and cheaper and we can't have too much of what we want, can we?

Look, I'll be honest with you.  I'm in the 95th percentile on IQ tests.  That means that, theoretically, I'm smarter than 95% of the population.  Read that carefully.  It means that I sometimes have little in common with my neighbors, have little interest in their opinions and know that many of their opinions are based on nothing, erroneous thinking, etc.  However, I believe in Our Constitution and respect the rights of every American even if I think they're stupid in many ways.  They have a life and have the right to live it, so have I.

So we have laws and principles.  We don't all agree on what they should be, even those who believe they are religiously superior who are usually deluding themselves.

In any case, I began writing about accountability because our reps are not, in most cases, accountable to us and we're at fault for that.  Being a Citizen should be an active thing, not just a word we throw around.  Our reps should know us, be a little nervous to be hearing from us and should hear from us frequently.  I recommend contacting your reps immediately after every election and introducing yourself and telling your rep that you will be in touch on matters of interest to you; then, do that, contact them frequently.  Keep up with what they're voting on, in your name, and tell them how you want them to vote.

But, on the policy level there are some things that need to change:  

• Contacting our reps should be simple and easy; right now it isn't necessarily that.
• Lobbyists are monied private interests that don't necessarily align with our interests and often don't, our reps web sites should have daily reports of meetings with lobbyists, discussion points and time spent.
• Each elected official sits on a number of committees that decide national policy affecting everyone, therefore, everyone in the country should be able to contact that official regardless of whether or not they are in their election district.
• If enough of an elected officials' constituents are unhappy with their work, it should be easier to get rid of them and replacement them.
• Elections are state run and should remain so and political parties should not be running them.  Voting districts should be geographical or by population, not by party.  One of my library boards was once asked the party of a proposed new board member.  That is completely unacceptable and irrelevant to the work of a local board.  Political parties are out of control.

Citizens United as a term is a LIE.  It has nothing to do with citizens.  It should never have been allowed to be law; it's powerful monied interests controlling our government.  It has to be repealed.  It says that corporations are citizens and have the right to donate whatever they want to political campaigns.  WRONG.  Here's why.  Yes, corporations are made up of Americans each of whom has the right to vote and to donate to political campaigns.  Designating a corporation as a citizen, gives that corporation, it's board members, additional influence in any election.  So, your bank and your supermarket chain and the manufacturer of your car who you can be sure have vastly more money than you, can contribute to a campaign and get favors from elected officials that you can't.  SEE?

Then, there's this little FCC regulation:  "Pursuant to Section 611 of the Communications Act, local franchising authorities may require cable operators to set aside channels for public, educational, or governmental ("PEG") use."  So what is all the campaign money spent on?  The most expensive media is TV and radio.  Tightening this regulation a bit by removing the "may" or changing it to "must" would relieve some of the need for money since public access means free access.  Also, controlling the content and volume of political campaign advertising, etc. would help.  And, the media will cover the campaigns anyway.  Part of the problem, of course, is that everyone involved thinks much too highly of their monetary value and there are far too many involved.  Just a few thoughts about this sticky subject.

So, I'm fond of regulation.  My expectations of my fellow Americans is that most won't behave well unless they have to. You're free to disagree but look around... look in the mirror.

More on accountability at some point under the theme of responsibilities and consequences.

Preliminary Notes on a Healthcare Plan

Most problems with most plans, especially government plans, is that they don't set standards and omit definitions.  That's because our elected officials are career politicians and want to be reelected.  We will all be immensely better off when term limits are imposed and they can actually focus on work for us.

These are the primary pieces of my healthcare policy:

• We have to move back to not-for-profit health insurance with tight regulation of what's covered and how insurance companies are compensated.
• The primary care physician will be central to the healthcare system with extra compensation, responsibilities and defined staff positions.
• There will be a roster of universal coverage for everyone in the country that needs it paid through federal agencies that will cover 80% to 100% of various treatments.
• supplemental insurance which will be defined and named supplemental by the federal plan and not altered or marketed by insurance companies will cover up to 80% of a variety of medical treatments that are less used by the general populace.
• Orphan/rare illness may be covered 100% and monitored by scientific and medical agencies in an effort to learn more about causes and treatments.

Assumptions that are made in this policy are:

• The the Constitution intended for "the general welfare" to include healthcare for all the citizenry.
• ALL resources of the federal government BELONG to the American people and the government, as agent and servant of The People, merely serves to facilitate the use of those resources, including the budget to provide The American People with the best lives they can achieve.

Problems in implementation:

• The size of the system which is why redesigning the system  by elevating the primary care physician as the healthcare team leader with additional responsibilities than simply healthcare.

Many healthcare professionals are guilty of over-scheduling and provide less and less actual healthcare.  Many healthcare groups market their services as providing teams of professionals when they are actually top-heavy with administrative staff who structure patient visits like an assembly line.

It would be the major function of the primary care physician to replace the insurance company's monitoring of a patient's care.  They would provide:

• Annual wellness exams and any necessary accompanying lab tests.
• routine appointments for season allergies, cold, etc. and referrals to specialists that would not be second-guessed by  insurance companies. 
• Monitoring of on-going treatment of serious illnesses and conditions being treated by specialists, like cancer, glaucoma, cataracts, ulcers, etc.
• Consultations with any number of healthcare professionals who are treating a patient.
• Facilitation of exchange of healthcare documents  and lab reports among the various treating healthcare team.
• Statistical reporting of various medical information in order to maintain a high level of pertinent medical research in various areas.
• Patient assistance with unsatisfactory care from any healthcare professionals including referrals to appropriate legal services.

In order to carry out these additional, often non-medical responsibilities, primary care physicians would need a variety of technically trained staff.

Compensation for each of these additional responsibilities and for additional staff would be the responsibility of the federal government.  Where such things may have once been considered waste, they will become the funding to a well-oiled system carried out by well-compensated professionals who are able to focus on the specifics of their positions in order to provide the best healthcare for each individual patient.

•  Outdated beliefs:

'It would be too expensive'  I heard those words repeated too often growing up.

Numbers with $$ signs in front of them can be intimidating but they're just numbers.  What is the the purpose of money?  It's a vehicle of exchange in trade.  Rather than trade 5 sheep and 20 chickens for a milk cow, money was invented so people didn't have to transport goods for exchange around with them.  It was also invented by men who had nothing to trade but wanted a cut of the action - the financial "industry"; keep your eye on them; they are not to be trusted.

My feeling about money, while often still influenced by the never enough, cup half empty point of view, has evolved to feeling that what money gets you is the most important thing.  I certainly think that in this outrageously wealthy country, everybody can and should get, not just good, but excellent healthcare.

• The Ultra Wealthy - whether they be millionaires or billionaires, we, the ordinary working people keep protecting their privilege. 

Here's what I think about wealth.  I had ancestors who held hundreds of acres in a particular area.  None of us in the related families have any wealth now.  Why?

Wealth is acquired in several ways:  inherited and not lost but grown; by finding something that everybody wants and is willing to pay well for and not losing that gain; by cheating, deception, theft, conning and even killing.  Those are the most common ways individuals become wealthy.  I, personally, assume the last is the most common.  And, I'm not talking about the well-off, people who have always made more money than I have because what they do is valued more than what I do.  The ebb and flow of that is fairly steady.  I'm talking about the extremely wealthy whose wealthy is difficult for most of us to fully appreciate or understand.

I, personally, feel that it's time that we see that, on  this tiny planet, our species cannot survive much longer if we continue to allow this imbalance.  Many of the original colonists were people who were starving, had no possibility of rising above their circumstances and came here to this, so they believed, empty place in hopes of making a decent life for themselves and their families.  The founding fathers whose lives were much more than that but who were not the ultra wealthy like today argued a set of principles which would allow the possibility of almost anyone to achieve a good life.

What I would propose about this problem will appear in a future post. 

 

 

 

 

 

We have a Constitution

and a process for amending it.

There has been talk, from time to time, of rewriting our Constitution.  Certainly any reasonable person would think that now, when we are so divided and combative is not the time to do that.

Certainly, there are changes that need to be made but the existing amendment process that would normally work is also compromised by those same divisions and fights.

The Constitution is very clear about some things and intentionally vague and open to interpretation in others.  I think that's by design.  However, that's not really the problem.  The problem is that the division of the 2 major parties, to the exclusion of any other, has resulted in nearly complete abandonment of what is actually in the Constitution.

The current administration, lead by a pathological con man who is completely disinterested in anything other than whatever happens to be in his own mind at any particular point in time, has little interest in our Constitution, particularly if it is at odds with the current interests of the Lunatic in Chief. (He has been diagnosed by many professionals).

Even those who probably know better are ignoring what the Constitution says because it serves their immediate purposes to do so.

Still our Constitution exists and will, eventually, be the measure of the lawlessness that currently reigns in the White House and other government institutions.  It is the basis of the Law of the land despite the Supreme Court's own abandonment of its principles whose purpose is to rule on the Constitutionality of all subsequent laws and regulations.  They too will be measured by those principles.