Unions, The Estate Tax and a Living Wage
Harold Myerson in the August 2 Washington Post relates the story of how the Republicans passed a minumum wage bill - and it truly is minimal - with an estate tax cut sweetener for their donors. You would think their rank and file would be upset with them, since most of them are not millionaires and more and more of the social conservative Christians make close to the minimum wage as a result of their economic policies. On August 3rd, the Post relates that the AFL-CIO is opposing the bill. Is it just me, or has the AFL-CIO gotten way too partisan? Instead of blocking the bill, they should fight for the inclusion of a provision indexing the wage to inflation. Of course, that might just kill it.
One day, the Republican social conservative and largely Christian base will wake up to the fact that they are getting screwed by their own party. Since their is no way they are going back to the Democrats, perhaps they will come here. Union members have already left the Democratic Party because of the social agenda and because the Democratic Leadership Council has sold them out with NAFTA. They are also unlikely to return to their roots.
Here is what the CLP can offer them both groups:
a. An end to the filing of personal income taxes for all but high income earners or inheritors.
b. A tax credit through their employers for their mortgage interest and each of their dependents of at least $500 per month federal and $500 per month state (in high cost states) to be paid with work or for completing their educations (which will be paid for through loans and employer tax credits for the functionally literate and free through their house of worship if they are not).
c. Taxes on heirs, not estates, and only when the estate is converted to cash or personal use. This does not help the rank and file, since most of them are not high dollar hiers unless their employer becomes and ESOP, which will allow heirs to transfer their shares to it tax free. Then the average worker will become an owner as well. The other parties are not promising this. The Democrats do not believe in doing an end run around the unions to ownership and the Republican leadership does not believe in sharing.
The result of both of these provisions will be a more competitively set base wage as extracting payment for family support and educational attainment brings most workers to an average wage while the advent of workplace democracy in the payment of management salaries and the payment of incentive bonuses for actual accomplishement rather than position complete the trend. This will make a minimum wage quite unnecessary except as device to make sure that employers are not transfering all salary payments to fax free allowances and incentives. In essence, each employer would pay taxes on the average wage of his employees and any profits realized. This wage must be high enough to actually fund the government, although the changes I am advocating will make government less and less necessary with time.
For more information, see these articles on the Iowa Center for Fiscal Equity web page:
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/taxreformproposal.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/Governance.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/PayEquity.html
One day, the Republican social conservative and largely Christian base will wake up to the fact that they are getting screwed by their own party. Since their is no way they are going back to the Democrats, perhaps they will come here. Union members have already left the Democratic Party because of the social agenda and because the Democratic Leadership Council has sold them out with NAFTA. They are also unlikely to return to their roots.
Here is what the CLP can offer them both groups:
a. An end to the filing of personal income taxes for all but high income earners or inheritors.
b. A tax credit through their employers for their mortgage interest and each of their dependents of at least $500 per month federal and $500 per month state (in high cost states) to be paid with work or for completing their educations (which will be paid for through loans and employer tax credits for the functionally literate and free through their house of worship if they are not).
c. Taxes on heirs, not estates, and only when the estate is converted to cash or personal use. This does not help the rank and file, since most of them are not high dollar hiers unless their employer becomes and ESOP, which will allow heirs to transfer their shares to it tax free. Then the average worker will become an owner as well. The other parties are not promising this. The Democrats do not believe in doing an end run around the unions to ownership and the Republican leadership does not believe in sharing.
The result of both of these provisions will be a more competitively set base wage as extracting payment for family support and educational attainment brings most workers to an average wage while the advent of workplace democracy in the payment of management salaries and the payment of incentive bonuses for actual accomplishement rather than position complete the trend. This will make a minimum wage quite unnecessary except as device to make sure that employers are not transfering all salary payments to fax free allowances and incentives. In essence, each employer would pay taxes on the average wage of his employees and any profits realized. This wage must be high enough to actually fund the government, although the changes I am advocating will make government less and less necessary with time.
For more information, see these articles on the Iowa Center for Fiscal Equity web page:
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/taxreformproposal.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/Governance.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/PayEquity.html
posted by Michael Bindner at 9:25 AM
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