Forum Post: HOLD WALL STREET ACCOUNTABLE

Here's a simple formula for what we'd like to accomplish here: HOLD WALL STREET ACCOUNTABLE. The media seem to think there's no cohesiveness to the program we're advancing. But that's simply false. Occupy Wall Street is trying to accomplish a very clear goal: we want to hold Wall Street accountable. There are many aspects to that, but the two main ones are easy to state and easy to rally around: (1) REGULATE MARKETS. Over the last several years, we've seen corporations and businesses wage a war against rules and regulations of unprecedented scope and intensity. They have been successful at accomplishing their deregulatory dreams, but in the process have caused tremendous damage to the economy and the environment. We support rules and regulations as the only viable means of protecting the economy and environment from the unchecked forces of greed. (2) TAX THE RICH. Over the last 10 years, the working classes have had to pay a greater share of the tax burden than ever before while the federal government does less and less for us with every spending cut they pass. Meanwhile, millionaires and billionaires are paying taxes at record-low rates while their profits are at record highs. This is a fundamentally unjust arrangement tantamount to class warfare. We see what the rich are doing and we will end this war by restoring the tax rates for the rich to what they were before Bush took office and by closing the loopholes by which they evade doing their share to support our common needs.

HOLD WALL STREET ACCOUNTABLE. REGULATE MARKETS. TAX THE RICH.

This is what we're struggling for. It's not complicated. It's common sense. If you can't understand that, then you've been spending too much time in Corporate America, and not enough time among the people of this democracy.