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Forum Post: Suggested Core Principles for the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 7, 2011, 6:18 p.m. EST by dimo (0)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Posting this, on behalf of a friend that has been involved with social work for many years now (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmfOYPNuFMs). I would love to hear what you guys think about these, also feel free to send him comments directly! Thanks!

Suggested Core Principles for the Occupy Wall Street Movement

The Occupy Wall Street movement encourages participatory democracy and does not want to restrict the movement to a specific narrow policy agenda. The movement will be stronger and better able to reach a wide audience, however, if it can concisely communicate a core consensus that motivates the movement.

Here are 3 suggested elements for a Declaration of Principles:

  1. The global economic collapse was caused, not by teachers and other public service workers, but by big banks and investment houses that created and sold worthless mortgage derivatives, made record bonuses, received record government bailouts, and now are making record bonuses again.

  2. Big money has distorted American democracy so that both parties are now more concerned with fundraising than with representing the interests of students, the working poor and the middle class.

  3. Suggesting that the marginal tax rates for millionaires and billionaires be returned to the rates they had during the Clinton years of prosperity before the Bush tax cuts is not a radical Bolshevik idea but a plain common-sense alternative to balancing the entire deficit on the backs of the poor and middle class.

For more information contact kbertrand@me.com.

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5 Comments


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[-] 2 points by jjdavenport99 (4) from Summit, NJ 12 years ago

My suggestions agree with these three principles and extend them:

Suggested Principles for the Wall Street Protest

by John Davenport Department of Philosophy Fordham University davenport.jj@gmail.com Oct.7, 2011

  1. The entire free-market system in which for-profit companies operate depends on the currency and laws established by the people=s government. It exists for the benefit of real people -- for social welfare. Entrepreneurs are great but need the same system of social cooperation as everyone else.

  2. Free markets are essential for a prosperous society, but the procedures and outcomes of free-market systems need to be limited by law for the sake of public goods that free markets cannot spontaneously generate, from individual rights, a legal system, and national defense to worker health and safety standards, and preservation of a healthy environment for future generations.

  3. The protections of unions and collective bargaining processes in law is one of the essential limits on free-market dynamics. In a global economy, it must be paired with fair trade policies so there is a level playing field between American workers and workers in developing nations.

  4. The public goods of equal opportunity and democratic participation require limiting the social and economic inequalities that accumulate over time in a capitalist system. This requires graduated tax codes in which higher incomes are taxed at higher percentage rates. "Flat taxes," including over-reliance on sales taxes, are inherently regressive and wholly unjust.

  5. This principle includes taxation of very large inheritances (e.g. over $2 million). It also includes long-term capital gains, which should no longer all be taxed at 15%. Instead, they should be taxed at graduated rates. For example: -- the first $10,000 : 10% -- from $100,000 to $1 million: 25% -- the next $10,000 : 15% -- over $1 million: 35% -- the next $80,000 : 20% -- over $5 million: 45%

These changes, together with a return to the tax rates of 2000 (before the Bush cuts for the rich) would eliminate almost half of our annual federal deficits, and stop increasing inequality in the US. We must recognize that it was the tax cuts of spring 2000 that returned us to deficits.

  1. Social Security tax should be applied to all income, not just the first $106,800. This single change would go a long way towards making the Society Security system solvent for the long-run. Similarly, Medicare tax should step up from 2.9% to 4% for income over $250,000 per year. This would go a long way towards ending the deficit in the Medicare system.

  2. Tax loopholes for hedge fund managers, big oil, and companies shipping jobs abroad must end.

  3. We need an infrastructure investment fund capitalized with at least $300 billion of federal money to partner with private funds and get this nation back to work and avoid a second depression.

  4. Democracy cannot function if our politicians are bought off by corporate money and our media filled with billionaire Pac-money advertising. We need a constitutional amendment to end these abuses now! Every high school student should also have a course on the federal debt and tax law.

  5. We also need a constitutional amendment to end the filibuster, which violates the great compromise in the making of the Constitution in 1787 (tilting even more heavily towards minority rule). The filibuster is used by both parties now to cause endless gridlock. When people elect one party to majorities in both houses and the presidency, and still nothing can get passed, they do not understand and become cynical.

[-] 2 points by CharlesRKiss (4) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

@makingexcuses

WRT 3)

I get tired of hearing “the wealthy” say we have a PROGRESSIVE tax system, and they’re doing us all favors by paying higher rates! We have a REGRESSIVE tax system!!

The truth is our largest companies (GE, Exxon, Halliburton, etc.) incur such high security costs overseas, not to mention the incalculable risks, they can’t possibly afford to price them in! Let’s face it, Exxon has a free US Navy protecting their fleets of tankers, this includes any company shipping products across seas, such as Apple, INC. Not to elaborate on the moral hazard risks of our largest banks and insurance companies; they ALL pass the costs down to the medium-large companies, who in turn, pass what they can further down, in a “pressure-down” system. Maybe this is an economic necessity -for the massive human resources (the other 99%) to insure against failures with taxation or conscription- and would therefore not insult me. What insults me is what we are taught in US business schools: that our tax system is “progressive”; this to me seems utterly FALSE!!

Indeed, excessively taxing the lower and middle classes has probably been useful to political power and capital since the beginning of time; lying about it is new, however (but serves a purpose): it makes everyone feel better to believe we have a “progressive” tax scheme -and it makes everyone look good.

I dislike intensely hearing people say things like, "I was fortunate, so it's my duty to share." These moral arguments are shill!!

~

Below is a link to a simple graph of what I mean; the idea is so old, and the graph so simple, it takes work to understand why we don’t accept it.

http://kissbrothers.com/graphics/pictures/trading.jpg

Essentially, the “benefits and entitlements” are insurance payments to the “lower classes” for when things go very wrong, and they have, many, many times -since Byzantium.

[-] 1 points by jjdavenport99 (4) from Summit, NJ 12 years ago

My suggestions agree with these three principles and extend them:

Suggested Principles for the Wall Street Protest

by John Davenport Department of Philosophy Fordham University davenport.jj@gmail.com Oct.7, 2011

  1. The entire free-market system in which for-profit companies operate depends on the currency and laws established by the people=s government. It exists for the benefit of real people -- for social welfare. Entrepreneurs are great but need the same system of social cooperation as everyone else.

  2. Free markets are essential for a prosperous society, but the procedures and outcomes of free-market systems need to be limited by law for the sake of public goods that free markets cannot spontaneously generate, from individual rights, a legal system, and national defense to worker health and safety standards, and preservation of a healthy environment for future generations.

  3. The protections of unions and collective bargaining processes in law is one of the essential limits on free-market dynamics. In a global economy, it must be paired with fair trade policies so there is a level playing field between American workers and workers in developing nations.

  4. The public goods of equal opportunity and democratic participation require limiting the social and economic inequalities that accumulate over time in a capitalist system. This requires graduated tax codes in which higher incomes are taxed at higher percentage rates. "Flat taxes," including over-reliance on sales taxes, are inherently regressive and wholly unjust.

  5. This principle includes taxation of very large inheritances (e.g. over $2 million). It also includes long-term capital gains, which should no longer all be taxed at 15%. Instead, they should be taxed at graduated rates. For example: -- the first $10,000 : 10% -- from $100,000 to $1 million: 25% -- the next $10,000 : 15% -- over $1 million: 35% -- the next $80,000 : 20% -- over $5 million: 45%

These changes, together with a return to the tax rates of 2000 (before the Bush cuts for the rich) would eliminate almost half of our annual federal deficits, and stop increasing inequality in the US. We must recognize that it was the tax cuts of spring 2000 that returned us to deficits.

  1. Social Security tax should be applied to all income, not just the first $106,800. This single change would go a long way towards making the Society Security system solvent for the long-run. Similarly, Medicare tax should step up from 2.9% to 4% for income over $250,000 per year. This would go a long way towards ending the deficit in the Medicare system.

  2. Tax loopholes for hedge fund managers, big oil, and companies shipping jobs abroad must end.

  3. We need an infrastructure investment fund capitalized with at least $300 billion of federal money to partner with private funds and get this nation back to work and avoid a second depression.

  4. Democracy cannot function if our politicians are bought off by corporate money and our media filled with billionaire Pac-money advertising. We need a constitutional amendment to end these abuses now! Every high school student should also have a course on the federal debt and tax law.

  5. We also need a constitutional amendment to end the filibuster, which violates the great compromise in the making of the Constitution in 1787 (tilting even more heavily towards minority rule). The filibuster is used by both parties now to cause endless gridlock. When people elect one party to majorities in both houses and the presidency, and still nothing can get passed, they do not understand and become cynical.

[-] 1 points by bap840 (13) 12 years ago

I suggest a guaranteed right to work, and stopping handouts for everyone (not just corporate elites) ... how can it be done? check out http://subsidizedlabor.org

[-] 0 points by makingnoexcuses (7) 12 years ago

This seems one-sided. The sub-prime mortgage crisis was largely caused by teachers and other public service workers who purchased homes they could not afford and defaulted on the payments.

Tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, especially in the banking sector, are far higher than any other tax rates. Bonuses are currently taxed at 50%.