- Demanding that the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes. As president, Sen. Sanders will stop corporations from shifting their profits and jobs overseas to avoid paying U.S. income taxes. He will create a progressive estate tax on the top 0.3 percent of Americans who inherit more than $3.5 million. He will also enact a tax on Wall Street speculators who caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes, and life savings.
Okay yes, the wealthy and large
corporations should pay their fair share in taxes but what exactly is
that? Taxing the wealthy too much is not good because though you may
not like that they have money, many of the top 1% employ people! You
want to argue that Bill Gates (or Microsoft to keep the argument
correct) should pay out the nose at a higher percentage rate than
you? They employee 118,000 people. People are aware that GE usually
pays little to no tax, and this is largely true and I can't
necessarily argue that the tax loopholes are a good thing. They
should pay a fair rate. But again, what is a fair rate?
General Electric employs about 300,000
Americans (#10 in the top 10). They already compensate you and now
you want them to pay for your government programs and other
non-employees as well? If you tax these corporations too much, they
will move operations elsewhere. It's called the free market and these
companies have a duty to their employees and stockholders to be
competitive which you are hurting with some of the highest corporate
tax rates anywhere. You know why they're moving jobs to other
countries? Because it is too expensive to be competitive in many ways
here!
“Key Findings. The United States has
the third highest general top marginal corporate income tax rate in
the world at 39.1 percent, exceeded only by Chad and the
United Arab Emirates. “ (Taxfoundation.org).
Keep pushing and see how many jobs stay
in this country. Lower the tax rate, more jobs will come back. And
sorry, if you do not have a skill that leads to a wage you consider
fair, I guess you better come up with a skill that does. Ask the tech
workers in India what they make an hour in USD. Those guys actually
have a skill and I bet they live worse off than you.
As far as the estate tax goes, that is
just robbery on all levels. I don't care if you inherit $500 from a
distant cousin or $500,000 from your grandmother, the government has
no right to any of that and neither do you (through the government).
I don't know enough about Wall street
speculation to comment on that last part so I won't.
Do I agree with how the tax system is
set up? No. In fact I don't think we should have an income tax and
government should be much smaller but that is not in the scope here.
What I really want to see is people logically tackling an issue, not
simply calling for the stroke of a pen without understanding the
consequences.
- Increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour by 2020. In the year 2015, no one who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.
I could (and others have, they're
called econ textbooks!) write a book on how ignorant of economics you
are if you think this statement is not lunacy. Your labor, as with
any other product, carries a value that the market determines. Jobs
that pay $7.25 have a high supply of labor in comparison to the
demand. You are replaceable if your skills only qualify you for this
kind of labor. All of you protesters will find out real quick what
happens when you're wage doubles over night (and yes 5 years is an
economic overnight for that kind of increase) and your skills do not.
They will look for more talented people. And guess what else? They
will find it too.
The average EMT, yes those life saving
individuals with insane hours and lots of training in the
preservation of life, makes $15 an hour. I'm sure quite a few of
these driven individuals would stay with their careers because they
are doing an important and fulfilling job. But some of the less
motivated ones are going to take your job. Construction workers make
about $17 an hour. I think I would rather work in an air conditioned
gas station than out in the hot sun and as a construction worker I
probably have some skills that would come in handy in maintenance
around a fast food restaurant. (both from BLS.gov).
Quick snapshot of some common
manufacturing jobs from Indeed.com based on actual job postings and
reporting:
I bet all of these people would be
willing to challenge you for your job running the cash register for
$15.
Do you think you're sticking it to the
man when you ask for $15/hr? In many cases “the man” is a small
business owner. Yes, those guys that employ about half of
the workforce. (See
here [opens a pdf]). You think you're
sticking it to McDonald's? 90% of their stores are franchises not
corporate stores. (See
here). Franchises often only get a few percent
in profit margins. You're not taking money from the corporations,
you're taking money from hard working franchise owners and their
families. Their reaction will be to try and preserve their standard
of living by finding more skilled employees (see above) who can
perform multiple functions.
And what will this $15/hr minimum wage
do to the cost of living? It will increase. The demand for products
will go up, sure, and this sounds good but increased demand leads,
ultimately, to higher prices, economics 101. Yes, it can be argued
that the increased demand will lead to higher production and more
jobs and that argument is somewhat valid though speculative. However,
production will not ramp up instantly so prices will rise and
supplies will dwindle until a new equilibrium is met at a higher
cost. Production will ramp up and prices will then fall. Best case,
they fall back to the previous level and you've only caused a short
term economic crisis. More likely though, the prices will still be
higher than before (source: economic basics and a Master's degree in
business). Again you could argue that over the 5 years before the
raise takes place, companies can proactively hire and train. They're
not going to do that though because that is a net loss for them. They
end up with a higher payroll than before and a supply that is too
high for the current demand dropping prices and profit margins. All
of this forces companies to do more with less (does that sound
familiar? They're already doing that because of the last recession).
This will increase, not decrease the income disparity between the
poor and all other economic classes because they will favor workers
with a higher level of skill. And these poor people will then work
even harder. Bottom line: what once was worth $7.25 is now $15
without any increase in inherent value. That is the definition of
inflation.
So US products now cost more across the
board. Stores will bring in more imports, increasing demand for
products outside of the US and shipping more prosperity from the US
to other countries.
On a personal note, what does this do
to me and others like me (Middle middle class? I'm not sure what I
am)? I can pretty much guarantee that while my company is increasing
labor costs on the bottom end, they're not going to give me a $7.75
raise to counter the above rising cost of living and inflation. So
thank you for lowering my standard of living when you aren't actually
helping your own.
The answer is not a pen stroke, but
hard work. Please don't respond with “but I have kids!” I'll keep
that in mind when I live in your world to demand a raise when I get
married and have kids even though my value to the company has not
increased. The fact is that although college costs have skyrocketed
(I'll get to that later), community colleges offer decent programs at
an affordable rate. In fact, I did some research for a friend and
found that that BC3 in Butler county PA (North of Pittsburgh) is not
only free if you make less than 30k a year, but you can also receive
a small living expense allowance. Will you finish in 2 years while
working too? Probably not but you will develop skills that you can
market and raise your standard of living. And before you write off
community colleges, many of them have relationships with local
industry and other colleges. First of all this allows them to teach
you skills that are in demand in your area. It also allows you to
transfer credits to another university if you choose to go further.
- Putting at least 13 million Americans to work by investing $1 trillion over five years rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, railways, airports, public transit systems, ports, dams, wastewater plants, and other infrastructure needs.
I can't point out any overwhelming flaw
to this except where is that trillion dollars coming from? Higher
taxes. The DOTs in this country are notoriously mismanaged and
expensive compared to private industry where competition can lower
costs. If you want to put people to work and improve infrastructure,
do away with the DOTs and hand the work over to the private sector.
Will there be hiccups? Yes, but ultimately this is a better and more
efficient system to not only put people to work, but lower costs and
thus taxes.
I will say I'd appreciate fewer
potholes, but the government should not handle this project if you
want to maximize benefits to the economy and the workers they want to
employ with such a program. If you're curious:
http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/eras/great-depression/public-works-administration-2/
I will take a different tone here than
the above sections but still point out the flaws I doubt politicians
have considered in doing this right.
- Reversing trade policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR with China that have driven down wages and caused the loss of millions of jobs. If corporate America wants us to buy their products they need to manufacture those products in this country, not in China or other low-wage countries.
I will focus on “If corporate America
wants us to buy their products they need to manufacture those
products in this country, not in China or other low-wage countries.”
This statement is completely counter to what the other economic
policies will foster. You have increased the cost of production in
the USA, now you want corporations to move more work here? Ok sure
let's say that isn't an insane notion counter to every business plan.
Let's say they do move all production back to the US with an even
higher corporate tax rate (see above) and higher production cost.
Great, now we have extremely expensive products that cannot compete
with imports from other countries. Would you also like to shut down
trade with all other countries so we have even less competition and
the prices rise even higher?
I have a better idea to increase your
wealth while driving down costs and increasing demands. Shrink the
government and reduce taxes. You will keep more money and so will
corporations which will give them incentive to come back to this
country and set up shop here.
- Creating 1 million jobs for disadvantaged young Americans by investing $5.5 billion in a youth jobs program. Today, the youth unemployment rate is off the charts. We have got to end this tragedy by making sure teenagers and young adults have the jobs they need to move up the economic ladder.
I cannot poke wholes in the good
intentions of this statement. You're absolutely right, teenagers and
young adults need to work and gain experience and skills but you
can't just legislate that.
Do you see the spike that really starts
to take hold around the last recession (~2008)? With lots of people
out of work, they started to take the lower level jobs that are
typically where the young find a foothold. Creating jobs just for the
youth when the demand is not there is not the way to go. It will be a
slow process, but the economy must be nurtured for these jobs to come
back within reach of the very unskilled youth (see all of the above).
I could also get into discouraged
workers and the “statistics” involved in the unemployment rate
but I leave that up to the reader as it is off topic.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/11/12/undercounting-very-discouraged-workers/
- Fighting for pay equity by signing the Paycheck Fairness Act into law. It is an outrage that women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns.
I have worked with VERY intelligent and
skilled women who are compensated just fine. My family is full of
strong women (engineers, computer scientists, biologists, journalists
etc) and none of them have complained of discrimination in pay. I
will point out sources of income disparity that are not based on
discrimination.
Women are less likely to negotiate a
higher wage and accept what is offered (www.NBER.org).
Men and women vary greatly in their
career field choices (see
here). The actual data suggests that there is
very little difference when men and women are doing the same job with
similar experience and education backing them up. This slight
difference could be from the above point on negotiation.
The typical “75 cents to every
dollar” chant is largely caused by differing career fields. By
legislating absolute “income equality” will actually mean men
will have to be paid less for the same work. For example, a female
receptionist will have to make more than a male receptionist because
this field pays less than Electrical engineering which is a typically
male dominated field. If you want true income equality, encourage the
dissolution of gender roles and encourage intelligent young women to
explore other fields if they are so interested.
- Making tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout America. Everyone in this country who studies hard should be able to go to college regardless of income.
Okay that is fine if you are willing to
pay the taxes that will be required to fund such a thing. The bigger
problem is way colleges and universities are run. Tuition is off the
charts. Private colleges are cashing in on this trend while public
schools are increasing their profit margins to compensate for the
cuts in State funding. That may sound like approval for this plan but
it isn't because I support lower taxes.
Working on making schools affordable
without losing quality of education is not a simple matter. Much like
the healthcare act (which is a discussion for another section),
throwing a large amount of students on a system that isn't prepared
to handle it will decrease the quality of education across the board.
Trimming fat is one positive step:
That is direct from the University of
Pittsburgh website.
That is roughly $1000 a month to share a studio apartment with a
roommate IF we consider that to be a 12 month cost which it isn't,
school is in session 9 months of the year unless students take summer
classes. Local studio apartments (private) range from $500 - $1000 a
month. With a roommate, that is $250 - $500 a month without an added
cost if they stay for summer classes. That leaves a whopping
$500-$750 a month for food, clothing, and bills if private housing is
found. I would have killed for $500 a month for food etc. I wouldn't
have lived for a week on bread and crackers my Freshman year. I don't
spend that much on food and clothing now. Yes, the capacity is not
there right now but the opportunity will provide more private housing
and competition on prices.
Now we compare that to total tuition
for various schools within the university and see that thousands a
year can be shaved off with the above change.
A small step sure but it shows the
problem with schools who post profit and even those that don't.
Or we can take the technology route.
Many subjects don't change year to year and professors just repeat
the same lecture for the same class year to year. These lectures are
often posted online at more open minded universities. The only reason
I would have trouble buying the textbook and studying myself is that
it doesn't provide the piece of paper that says I learned what I need
to learn. It can also be frustrating to find additional resources
when something doesn't make sense. Combine the technology with the
traditional universities and costs can be cut.
I don't have all of the answers but I'd
bet there are lots of good ideas out there to add to these ideas and
reduce costs further.
- Expanding Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable income above $250,000. At a time when the senior poverty rate is going up, we have got to make sure that every American can retire with dignity and respect.
Again, I'm anti-tax in a lot of ways so
this actually makes sense but could be made completely irrelevant if
the Social Security system collapses. I do not trust the government
to manage my money but I understand the need to feel secure with
retirement. Frankly, taxing anything you choose to make after you
start collecting social security at any other rate than normal is
robbery. You paid into that system, that is your money. You shouldn't
be penalized for using it as leisure money if you can continue to
support yourself.
- Guaranteeing healthcare as a right of citizenship by enacting a Medicare for all single-payer healthcare system. It’s time for the U.S. to join every major industrialized country on earth and provide universal healthcare to all.
For next time!
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