The American dream has become distant and unobtainable for many – the US is (by a long way) the most unequal of the major industrial countries – there are signs of tension.
Recognize that the new economy picks and rewards winners, provides poorer returns for ‘runner ups’.
How we want to address this in two areas:
Crunchy but ‘left’
A progressive tax rate structure that places a greater burden of tax, relatively, on higher income earners.
Programs that support improvement of opportunity especially among the very young:
Crunchy but ‘right’
A flat tax rate structure that has all Americans contributing similar (flat rate) proportion of their income as tax. As now.
Leave programs to the states (but seek to reduce federal taxes to give states room to levy taxes necessary to fund these programs, should they so chose).
