The reason why Donald Trump got elected is because he recognized that the American worker has gotten a crooked deal from the American economy. This is also the reason for the popularity of Bernie Sanders and the general malaise among American workers. American workers know that they have been handed a raw deal by the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations. A combination of trade, tax and fiscal policies has kept the wages of American workers artificially low. Working people know this already. I am happy to support anybody who wants to make money including the wealthy. It is good for everybody in America. But that does not mean that it is okay to rig-the-deck and cheat the American worker by keeping wages depressed and unchanged over a period of 25 years.
There are a number of steps that we can take right now that will help to address this situation:
First is to eliminate Social Security and Medicare taxes. We should abolish these taxes and substitute a value added tax on the entire economy. We would need an approximately 7% value added tax to replace all of the money being paid for Social Security and FICA taxes and make these programs solvent for the future. We have to understand that these taxes are anti-labor and are not equally applied. People who live off their investments, millionaires, doctors and lawyers who sell their professional services, and people who earn more than $55,000 per year are not paying Social Security taxes in the same percentile as the average American. Again, these taxes mitigate against labor. Example: If you buy a machine to work in your factory there are no FICA taxes which penalize you. If you hire an employee, you have to set aside 15% of their wages. There is no equity in taking working people in America and subjecting them to these taxes. We would be better off with a 7% value added tax that is applied to everything (which would include American goods and any foreign goods shipped into this country). Example: In a car made in the United States of America, one-third of the cost of that car is made up of taxes paid by Americans. A car that is shipped into this country from Japan or Germany pays no American taxes. Even taxes in their home countries are forgiven. The value added taxes would be a much preferable way of dealing with the need to fund Social Security and Medicare and would present a major change in the after tax income for working Americans.
Second, is that 24 million illegal immigrants did not sneak into this country without the knowledge of the American Government. They were brought to this country by the corporate system to create a reserve army of the unemployed and consistently depress the wages of working Americans. If these 24 million illegal immigrants were not in the United States, we would not be talking about a $15.00 minimum wage because everybody would already be earning $20.00 per hour. We have to stop allowing large numbers of illegal immigrants to come to this country, taking jobs from Americans and causing the wages of Americans to be depressed. Make no mistake, the policy of these illegal immigrants coming to the United States was not an accident. This was orchestrated by Republicans, Democrats and the corporate system. Example: At one time, Tyson Foods from Arkansas was sending buses to Mexico to pick up illegal immigrants and bus them back to Arkansas. Once back in Arkansas, Tyson Foods would employ these illegal immigrants to pull the guts out of chickens. Meanwhile, this illegal practice displaced American workers because they would not agree to gut chickens for $7.25 per hour.
Third, beyond illegal immigration and Social Security taxation which have impacted workers in America is the taxation that we impose on them. In this country, we should be eliminating any income taxes for the bottom 60% of Americans. The revenue from income tax on the bottom 60% of Americans constitute less than 10% of total income tax collections.
If we do all of these things, the after tax income for American workers earning less than $55,000.00 per year will go up by 20-30%. In order for working people in this society to get a fair shake and share in the American Dream, we have to rearrange our immigration and tax policies. This will not be accomplished by punishing the wealthy. Again, the existing policy was not an accident. It was created to limit the real after tax income of workers. In a free market with control of immigration, elimination of Social Security and FICA taxes and an end to income taxation for 60% of American workers the results would be good for America and good for workers.
