Read on below for Thom Hartmann’s “11 ways” (paraphrased where not directly quoted).
1. Rebuild America’s manufacturing base
“[S]imply moving money around or creating a service economy (“Do you want fries with that?”) doesn’t produce long-lasting wealth in a country; only manufacturing does.”
2. Roll back the Reagan tax cuts
“[W]hen top income tax rates on millionaires and billionaires are above 50 percent, not only does the gap between the very rich and the working poor shrink but the nation’s economy stabilizes and grows.”
3. Stop coddling Big Business
“From too-big-to-fail to too-big-to-allow-competition, oligarchical corporations have come to dominate virtually every major sector of the American economy; the result has been the devastation of local economies and the prevention of new entrepreneurial small ventures.”
4. Promote an informed and educated electorate
“[We need to] take our media back from the profit-hungry monopolies that have abandoned the public-service mission of media.”
“[E]very American, regardless of birth or station, should be able to get an education from primary school through postgraduate university programs, *at no cost*. Spending on the education of young people pays off handsomely when they go on to make the society richer and, because of their higher incomes, provide higher income-tax revenues.”
5. Create a universal (single-payer) health insurance system
“[A] nation that liberates its citizens from worrying about getting proper health care is a nation of entrepreneurs, innovators, and stress-free families.”
6. Break the grip of money on our politics and government
“We need to fix–seal, really–the revolving door between government and industry; repair our monetary, investment, and banking systems; and change how we finance campaigns….”
7. Kick our oil addiction
“The solutions include a carbon tax, but we must act soon.”
8. Reduce America’s dependence on the military
“[W]e cannot force other countries by military might to adopt our values of democracy and an open society…they will steal our ideas and our values if we engage them constructively so they can see how they can benefit from those ideals.”
9. Address the problem of illegal hiring
“[W]hat’s popularly referred to as “illegal immigration” [is in reality] a problem of economics and illegal hiring by American companies. … We can fix all of this by cracking down on companies illegally hiring “undocumented workers” and by tightening the labor market to shore up wages for American workers.”
10. Amend the Constitution to say that only *humans* are people
“[F]or 130 years [since the U.S. Supreme Court gave corporations human rights under the Constitution] we’ve seen the creeping encroachment of the corporate form into rights our Founders fought and died for to give exclusively to humans. … The result–if not fixed soon–will be the complete transformation of this country from a democracy into a corporate plutocracy.”
11. Embrace alternatives to the traditional top-down investor-owned corporate form
“[P]eople around the world are increasingly embracing these alternatives [such as worker-owned businesses and labor representation on boards of directors], because they are better for local communities, better for the workforce, and better for the environment.”
