My bad idea of the day:

[sofa king]

AN ACT

To reduce the income inequality between wealthy and poor Americans.

Section 1:

No American citizen may take in revenue that exceeds twenty times the annual amount paid to a full-time minimum-wage worker. Amounts of income over 20x minimum wage shall be reported and taxed at 90%. This income ceiling may never be raised without raising the minimum wage by the same or greater percentage.

Section 2:

Citizens found to be concealing their income or otherwise manipulating the system shall have 90% of their assets seized, their citizenship revoked, and the remaining ten percent of the assets used to forever deport the guilty party.

_________________________

I don't know how you would sneak this one past the current Congress, but what do y'all think of it, anyway?

The intent is to drive out election thieving, politics manipulating rich people by tying their fates DIRECTLY to those of the poorest Americans. The rich can only get richer--their primary interest--by improving the quality of life of the poor.

Would it work?

[Loudly]

1. Why not just go back to the old graduated brackets which topped out at around 90%?

[marble falls]

23. Like it was during the good times in the fifties under that "Democrat", Dwight D. Eisenhower.

[Loudly]

28. Who warned the nation against unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex!

[marble falls]

29. The same!

[The Magistrate]

2. Just To Be Sure It Worked, Sir

You would have to include some language specifying that capital gains counted as income no different from wages.

And it might be worth throwing in for a topping a provision taxing capital gains even if unrealized, by assessment of portfolio value on a date, perhaps corresponding to the Federal fiscal year, and paid not in cash but in a portion of the capital assets held.

[yeoman6987]

5. The only possible problem would be

Let's say you own a store and you make 20X what your employees make, are you going to want to open up even more stores or just work enough to make the 20X amount? I don't think we would see many chains if this were to be implemented.

[The Magistrate]

6. So No Chains Are Implemented, Sir

I fail to see that as a problem; there will simply be more small local stores, providing demand for what they sell exists.

And that demand is more likely to be there if money is not so concentrated in a few hands.

[yeoman6987]

8. How could this work for real?

I am being serious. Let's take Amazon for example. So you have a multi billion dollar company and the lowest employee makes 30,000 dollars a year. The CEO can only make 600,000? Perhaps I am not getting the full picture. What about the owner?

[The Magistrate]

10. What About The Owner, Sir?

A man has to know the meaning of the word 'enough', and if he does not, society ought not to be warped to his incapacities.

If Amazon were not there, other people would sell the items, and if they did so on a sufficient scale, employ others to assist in the endeavor.

I fail to see the problem....

[yeoman6987]

11. Amazon is not going away

If you want your proposal to work, we need to discuss details. Otherwise you could not get everyone on board with your desired outcome.

[The Magistrate]

12. Then He Gets Twenty Times What His Lowest Paid Worker Gets, Sir

His call how to proceed from there....

[yeoman6987]

13. I actually like your idea

However, it will never make it. We would need about 90 Democrats in the Senate and hope that 60 would be honorable enough to pass this. The House would need about 300 Democrats and hope 1/3 of the whole House would pass it. I really like the idea a lot but I can't even imagine it passing.

[The Magistrate]

14. I Think The Fellow Who Started This, Sir, Hinted Pretty Broadly It Was Not A Practical Proposal...

[calimary]

22. Isn't that how Costco does it?

[calimary]

21. Well, the freakin' PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES makes $400,000 a year.

That job can also be regarded as the position of Most Powerful Man/Woman in the WORLD. And the yearly salary is less than half-a-million dollars.

Perhaps with income inequality being so ridiculously unbalanced, some drastic corrective measures just might be needed. It would be one thing if we had these obscene CEO salaries but everybody farther down the food chain at least had enough to eat every day, or had a secure roof over their head, or wasn't underwater in their mortgage, or didn't have to go to food pantries every week, or had to live in their cars. But this is freakin' RIDICULOUS, and it CANNOT be sustained. Actually, or morally. It is UNSUSTAINABLE. It is an obscenity. A disgrace! It is a freakin' SIN. Not just any ol' sin, either, but a Capital Sin - avarice (greed).

[mopinko]

16. this-

You would have to include some language specifying that capital gains counted as income no different from wages.

really, do that, and everything gets better. especially ss and medicare. no other action required.

[Sienna86]

3. States could start by passing their own law...just like minimum wage laws

Good idea. Didn't Sweden do this?

[ret5hd]

4. You're doing it wrong.

I can tell already that I am MUCH better at bad ideas than you.

For example, MY bad idea of the day involves going to the morning meeting, waiting till my manager blows up and berates somebody (per his standard procedures), then I stare at him and say very dryly "You are no more than a petty bully." then stand up and leave the room.

Now THAT, my friend, is how you do bad ideas. You are a rank amateur.

I will say tho, that if you focused your efforts on GOOD ideas you might actually have a future in the ideas department.

[Lurks Often]

7. It would be ruled unconstitutional so fast your head would spin

There is NO way section 2 will stand up to judicial scrutiny.

[Boom Sound 416]

9. Capital gains would be too complicated.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. The first part already did work.

The top tax rate was 92% from FDR through Eisenhower. The Middle Class never grew faster.


JFK lowered it a bit.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. The problem with capping income...

...your idea, Ralph Nader's idea... any income cap, is that..


You can't also force some type of quota onto people who you cap to keep the amount of work they do constant.


For example. If a brain surgeon could only make twenty times minimum wage (say $300,000 or so) then she/he could charge 1/6th of that for one operation and only do 6 a year. Once others in the field started doing the same thing then more could be charged. You would end up with one operation costing something like $1.2 million and being paid for in four annual installments.



Just fix the tax code and get it back to what worked for decades. Your bad idea for the day is a really bad idea. This one should last you all week.

[TBF]

18. I think we should just get rid of capitalism. nt

[salib]

19. Should be 99% top marginal rate

My problem with the bad idea are the penalties. Is this really such a terrible offense as to require seizure of all assets (beyond what is owed and penalties)? Even worse, I thought this was a country of rehabilitation, growth and second chances: why would we just "kick these people out" of the country?

Other than that, a 99% top marginal tax rate at 20x the minimum wage is terrific. Especially constructive is tying the rate to tj minimum wage. Watch it rise. For most of the people impacted by this rate that salary would not cover house payments so the obvious solution is raise the minimum wage.
Brilliant!

[Augiedog]

20. Enemy combatant

Capitalism properly regulated and in service to the people is a good thing. Unregulated, predatory capitalism, as practiced today is an enemy combatant of Democratic principles and Republican morals that define American values. Corporate insurgency against this nation is the greatest enemy democracy has has faced in decades. Corporate America linking itself to religious tenets as a defense against government regulation is a perversion of both capitalism and religion. Corporations wearing the cloak religion are enemy combatants working to destroy democracy in favor of cash for themselves at the expense of all Americans. A capitalist system that sacrifices it's host in an attempt to squeeze out every penny possible, no matter the ultimate consequences, is by definition an enemy combatant.

[calimary]

24. Welcome to DU, Augiedog!

Glad you're here! That sure does nail it. Made me think of that old protest sign - "War is Unhealthy for Children and Other Living Things." Take out the word "War" and substitute "Capitalism" and you've got another very accurate protest sign. "Predatory Capitalism" is even more specific. Or its synonyms - "Vulture Capitalism" and/or "Vampire Capitalism." Same thing. Just different adjectives.

[Enthusiast]

25. I wish I could disagree.

If they would only voluntarily limit their greed. If they would stop trying to depress the vote and compromise democracy.

[SheilaT]

26. It's an interesting idea.

What is the spread in other countries between their minimum wage workers and their top ones?

It would certainly limit the sale of houses and stocks and the like. If I'd been smart enough to buy a hundred shares of Microsoft or Apple when each of them first went public, and had never sold any since then, I'd be sitting on several million dollars' worth at this point. Maybe several tens of millions of dollars. About 90% of which would be totally worthless to me.

Keep in mind that when the marginal rates were at their highest was when the wealthy class got very creative about protecting their money. It's why we have charitable deductions and why some income is taxed differently from others.

I did also read recently that among the reasons the wages of average workers rose so much during the 1950's was precisely the tax structure of that time. The managerial and owner class couldn't benefit too greatly from increasing their take, so they gave more of it to the rank and file.

[CFLDem]

27. It is pretty terrible. nt