Note: This article was updated 10/11/16.
We can raise a significant amount of revenue to create a surplus in the budget by raising taxes through value added taxes of luxury goods. At the same time we can remove all taxes, and even adding subsidies, for necessary goods, that is, goods that are necessary for survival and a basic quality of life.
Luxury goods include the following:
Big houses, big cars, clothing, toys, entertainment electronics, and so on. Luxury goods also includes?all unnecessary or unhealthy foods. These foods include: meat, sugar, all foods with sugar, fatty milk, all foods with significant amounts of fat, all breads, and so on. It includes most animal products, for animal products – with their fat and cholesterol – strongly correlate with the major health disorders, including heart disease, strokes, circulatory diseases, and cancer. Animal products also significantly help to destroy the environment and deplete natural resources.
Some of this tax money can be used for subsidizing necessary goods.
Goods that increase the quality of life and do not necessarily help destroy the planet; including the following:
Healthy and necessary foods, such as vegetables, fruits and grains. ? Small houses and small cars. ?Cars that run on electricity or natural gas. Public transportation and bicycles.
Basic Needs at a Reasonable Cost
A main policy goal could be to provide citizens with basic needs for existence and a decent quality of life and pay for this with tax on luxury goods and services.
A main goal of the Responsibility Party is to have an economy that makes it easy and efficient to supply the basic needs of the citizens: housing, food, health care, safety, employment and education. In this way, U.S. citizens could have more free time to pursue their other goals in life: make more money, do works of art, do avocations, and so on. This economic policy is opposed to the current economy where, regardless of how highly we are economically developed, it is still very difficult and competitive to supply these basic needs.
A main goal of the Responsibility Party is to provide a job at minimum wage and health care to every person able to work and to ensure that the person could afford her basic needs for existence with his/her job. These basic needs could be paid for by taxes on luxury goods and services.
A Green Economy
A new environment demands a new economy. Since we are destroying the earth with the present economy and since we are facing unending threats from abroad – including international jihadists intent on our destruction and the destruction of Israel — and since we have humanitarian international goals, we must have a new economy.
This economy must be dedicated to meet all the basic needs of all U.S. citizens, encourage an ever-increasing quality of life for all, and have maximum financial savings and maximum investment.
These economic goals imply a minimum of consumption of luxury goods.
The economy must follow the Japanese model of saving and investing, rather than maximum consumption, as is the American model. Americans could be encouraged to save and invest rather than spend. They could be encouraged to sacrifice as much as possible to achieve our international goals.
“Let history be our ultimate judge.” — JFK
This could be significantly accomplished by having high taxes on luxury goods and either no taxes, or subsidies, for necessary goods.
The illusion of the “trickle down economic theory”
This illusion is based on the idea that if the rich get richer, the money will eventually “trickle down” to all citizens and everyone will be better off. The illusion continues to believe that if government taxes the rich at high rates, then the government will use this money economically inefficiently and there will be less money for investment, hurting everyone.
The fallacy is that the rich, once they save money from taxes, often don’t invest back in the U.S., but rather make more profitable investments abroad, and then the money “trickles down” to citizens of foreign countries. Then Americans buy the products that are produced abroad, often with credit indirectly given by these countries. For example, the government borrows 40% of whatever it spends and borrows a significant amount of this money from China. Then the U.S. government gives money to it’s citizens in the form of various benefits, including social security, welfare, veterans benefits, and so on. Then with this borrowed money, Americans buy the Chinese products that American investors helped produce.
To remedy this situation, American citizens earning a high income could be taxed 50% on all profits from overseas investments but only 15% on all investments in the U.S. This would encourage more investment in the U.S. – which is the main engine for economic growth.
In return for the economic sacrifices all Americans will be called to make – in order to make American a secure and inspirational country – there can be an increase in the quality of life for all Americans.
This increase in quality of life could include some of the following goals:
1) Less crime due to prison reform; stricter law enforcement; and an agreed-upon standard of morality and etiquette.
2) 30-year no interest educational loans for all Americans regardless of age. This would allow for constant re-training and re-educating.
3) Increased subsidies to the arts and public entertainment.
4) 0% tax on capital gains and investments for people earning under $200,000 a year.
5) Less tax on all “green” business, that is, businesses that are assessed as contributing to the quality of life of individuals and of the country.
5) A national policy could be created to guide American businesses so that they produce essential and healthy goods. They could produce more healthy goods, not only for a higher quality of life but also for a healthier earth.