My Newer Deal series, a ten-part – (“tl;dr”) -- array of thirty-five proposals for Democrats and their allies, is finally drawing to a close.
All 35 concepts - some of them wholly unique and desperately needed, right now - are summarized in Part 3.
Parts 1 & 2 were introductory, showing how a 1990s Republican tactic -- both polemically brilliant and hypocritically evil -- offers important lessons for us, today. Or it would, if anyone gifted of curiosity might perk up and notice.
Parts 4-10 dived into the proposals, four at a time, with deeper explanations.
Alas, other than this person, who sagaciously understood and expanded on some proposals, I doubt anyone will pay heed. Democrats may be far less-corrupted and more focused on better things. But their political caste has the tactical skills of a tardigrade.
No matter, I've done my duty. And now I'll drift back into my lane, having at least offered some tools and pragmatic priorities. In case we ever get savvy 'generals' in this awful ninth phase of the recurring U.S. Civil War.
This time, part 10 offers some basic fixes... for taxes and such. Plus (and some of you will mutter "at last!")... the Liberal Agenda!
== Tax Reform ==
THE TAX REFORM ACT will simplify the tax code, while ensuring that everyone pays their fair share. Floors for the Inheritance Tax and Alternative Tax will be raised to ensure they only affect the truly wealthy, while loopholes used to evade those taxes will be closed. Modernization of the IRS and funding for auditors seeking very large caches illicitly hidden wealth shall be ensured by IRS draw upon major penalties that have been imposed by citizen juries.
Tax reporting amnesties will be offered, contingent upon affirmations that no future surprise caches of hidden taxable wealth are found.
The simplification process shall be separate from all other tax issues, while guaranteeing that no large category of taxpayers will be net harmed by simplification itself.
All tax breaks for the wealthy will be suspended during time of war or foreign conflict, so that the burdens of any emergency are shared by all.
This one may need to be parsed-out. First, modernization of the IRS that began with the Pelosi-Schumer-Sanders miracle bills of 2021-22 ... and trashed by Trumpers to protect cheater-oligarchs... will be restored. 1970s computers and software will be modernized and auditors sufficient to the task will be sent to world tax evasion havens.
Tax simplification was offered by Donald Trump and Paul Ryan in 2017: "You'll do your taxes on a postcard!" In fact, many European nations have computerized records so that Tax Day takes less than an hour for most citizens. While it's unlikely that AI omniscience will be delayed in the USA for long, we can try a different, non-European approach. My own proposed method has been around a long time. The "No Losers" concept. A neutral notion that will only be opposed by the vast and powerful tax-preparation cartel.
As for that final paragraph: Elites who send our sons and daughters to war, but not their own, will have to choose whether to keep their overseas adventures or their tax cuts. This will elucidate a poorly known fact. That all previous generations of the rich were at least willing to tax themselves during times of urgency, to help pay for wars they would not personally fight. This provision is not so much an anti-war measure as one that is anti-hypocrisy… one of the most devastating traits to attack in your opposing political side.
== The Excellence Act ==
THE AMERICAN EXCELLENCE ACT will provide incentives for American students to excel at a range of important fields. This nation must especially maintain its leadership, by training more experts and innovators in science and technology and resuming our immensely profitable method of attracting the world's brightest to come and study and work in the USA. Education must be a tool to help millions of students and adults adapt, to achieve and keep high-paying 21st Century jobs.
Okay, that one is pretty much self explanatory.
And yes, it's been noticed and commented that a majority of my proposals are structural, or procedural, for example protecting the neutrality of our civil servants, law agencies and military officer corps... or else ensuring that calamitous failure modes exploited by the Trumpians get patched and sealed!
Fair enough. Structural repairs can and must be passed swiftly - with 60%+ public support. Because saving the Republic and its responsible institutions and democracy -- and preventing an authoritarian putsch -- are paramount! As is prepping the way for a return to the politics of negotiation.
Hence I diverged from varied 'platforms' pushed by liberal or leftist mavens like Robert Reich, whose own proposed "Democratic Pledges" coincidentally appeared a couple of weeks after I started posting this series. To be clear, I generally quite respect and admire Reich! But his 'pledges' amount to a fantasy - give everyone a pony! - wish list of spectacularly unrealistic idealism, learning nothing from the agenda failures of Clinton and Obama when they tried for Grand Vision, all-at-once legislation...
...or from the hugely more-effective (incremental) successes of Biden/Pelosi/Schumer/Sanders in 2021-22.
Am I betraying the ambitious goals of liberalism? In a few cases - where I demur or disagree - perhaps so.
But actually, I share most of the goals expressed by Reich! Indeed, I expect many of them to follow! After we have saved the nation and world. After we have restored honest American political process. After we have protected the professionals on whom we all depend. After we have revived a word "negotiation" - unheard in this century - back into the political lexicon.
Indeed, after keeping our 'contract promises' under the 60% rule, we'll be rewarded with a mandate to do more.
But sure. Let's list some of those priorities here, just to show you that I am an ally who is arguing with you about WHEN, not whether to do these things, too!
== The Liberal Agenda ==
THE LIBERAL AGENDA: Okay. Your turn. Our turn. These are HIGH priorities, though beyond the 60% rule.
· Protect women’s autonomy, credibility and command over their own bodies,
· Ease housing costs: stop private corporations from buying up large tracts of homes, colluding on prices. (See my proposal #19.)
· Help working families with child care and elder care. (See proposal #8.)
· Consumer protection, empower the Consumer Financial Protection Board.
· At least allow student debt refinancing, which the GOP dastardly disallowed.
· Restore the postal savings bank for the un-banked.
· Basic, efficient, universal background checks for gun purchases, with possible exceptions.
· A national Election Day holiday, for those who actually vote in person. (See proposal #13.)
· Carefully revive the special prosecutor law.
· Expand and re-emphasize protections under the Civil Service Act.
· Anti-trust breakup of monopoly/duopolies to restore competition to American market economics.
And of course there are others... that will require that we get past the fanatcism and sloth exhibited by today's Congressional GOP... the laziest Congresses in the history of the Republic.
Once again, those Liberal Agenda items are not afterthoughts! Nor left to the end because they are low-priority! They are here at the end of my series because all but two of them will entail major fights! Battles we'll be better able to take on if we learn from the Clinton-Obama mistakes and start with those 60%+ reforms!
This is called politics, folks. Don't waste your political capital right at the start. Be seen as heroes by a clear majority, and they will reward you. Try it!
And if you have some other fresh ideas of your own, come on by the Contrary Brin comments section below! (And subscribe.) It's one of the best and most erudite comment communities online, with only a couple of occasional (polysyllabic ) trolls. Mostly folks talking in actual, complete sentences! Your cogently clear insights will be welcome.
== A final note about tactics ==
YOU could get this rolling. If you live in a gerrymandered Republican district, REGISTER REPUBLICAN so you can vote in the only election that matters to you - the one where your vote would matter - the GOP primary. Make this a movement. A flood!
Oh, and there's another reason! When (not if) many red states suddenly start purging the voter rolls, just before the next election, they won't purge you if you have registered Republican! Ponder that. And how it's just a word. You can live with it.
Sure, I'm daydreaming. Will that wish-scenario of sudden courage from the till-now craven Goldwater Right come to pass?
So far, with a few exceptions, the decent conservatives* have been utter cowards. But that could change, if YOU show them the way.
------
* They exist! Some of them are your neighbors who would help you if you get in trouble. They have been fooled, sure. But welcome them back into the light. And re-demonstrate to them the arts of listening and negotiation.
And yes, in some states the Register Republican notion doesn't matter. Those like California that have made party labels moot in compined primaries, for example. Still, give it some thought. Hold your nose, if you must. But reclaim some value to your vote.
37 comments:
Taxes on a Postcard: Shortly before Merkel ousted* Friedrich Merz from the party leadership in the early 2000s, he proposed a "Tax on a Beer Mat". It quickly died when people realized they would loose their tax returns and it favored the wealthy.
*They were in opposition, then. Merz could have stayed, but he found it unbearable not to be the number one.
Habeck of the Greens tried to propose increased taxes on passive income to finance the social insurrances but they did not calculate it thoroughly and kept it vague, and he got butchered for it in the election campaign. (This is one example of why the Greens govern well while in office, but are a disaster when campaigning.)
"Making your taxes" is a voluntary thing in Germany. You can file for returns if, for example, you had work-related expenses like commuting. It is capped at $1500, I believe.
Here's a bit of optimism to start the New Year with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUHjLxm3V0
https://bsky.app/profile/rudepundit.bsky.social
Trump's reax to D criticism of military action in Venezuela:
“All they do is complain. They should say, ‘Great job.’ They shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know, the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years & years & years.”
Y'know, if people are complaining for years and years that your actions have been unconstitutional, maybe they're not the problem?
Just sayin'
I hope you all understand that America is not a force for good and hasn't been for decades.
We're just an empire. As evil and ruthless as any other.
I like to quote Karl Jaspers in those moments.
"Power has legitimacy only in service of Reason. From there alone it receives it's purpose. In of itself it is evil."
Putin is absolutely counting on Dems and libs to do what they are now doing, be seen defending a bastard-illegal authoritarian regime that was toppled by our own bastard authoritarian. And there's nothing any of us sensible folks can do about our side's eagerness to fall into the trap..
Maduro is and was an evil usurper and dictator without even a hint of legitimacy. I had thought that Putin would order Trump to leave it at symbolic stuff, because Maduro was a KGB asset. But this event shows something else, that Maduro was a pawn who Putin just sacrificed in order to shore up his knight, Trump. And this will indeed, lift Donald and make many dems look like idiotic marxists for denouncing Maduro's fall.
Again, the Maduro regime was not legal by any stretch of the imagination. It was a criminal gang. What Dems should criticize is engaging in acts of war without consultation with Congress and the blatancy of its main purpose, to distract from Epstein.
Utter utter utter utter BS. See below.
It also shows that you’re a terrible political analyst who believes in absurd conspiracy theories and fairy tales about Putin’s omnipotence and the American empire’s goodness. Not much to be done about such a delusional boomer except wait for time to work its magic.
@Der Oger
No nation or sizable group of humans has ever made power serve “pure Reason”. That’s not how we roll. In reality, reason serves power, which serves various sub-rational drives and supra-rational ideals. Our host, for example, evinces the former when he lets slip his tribal hatred of Russians (comparing them unfavorably to farm animals) and the latter when he fantasizes about humans building a tower of Babel and becoming gods. And this is a dude who claims to be a big proponent of Enlightenment and Reason.
This is common failing I find among this cult: an un-selfawareness about their own deeper psychological and mythological drives, either because Reason makes them dumb or they use it to mask their real agendas. It’s also why the Reason cult continues to struggle to win humanity over and conquer the world: because they don’t understand themselves or humanity very well, being nerds in thrall a false god.
twit. It shows that Putin is LOSING and sacrificing pieces to save his most important one. And I should care what you think? You?
Yeah that's gotta be it. Hard to argue with an unfalsifiable theory where the theorist just makes things up after the fact to explain how whatever happened confirms his theory. I don't really care, but it's kinda amusing.
Hey, isn't Maduro a Spanish-speaking worst-of-the-worst drug gang leader who is in our country illegally? Someone should tell Kristi Noem that he needs to be deported to his country of origin without due process.
Oh, like you ever find the guts to stick your neck out to be either right or proved wrong. I do it a lot and accept when I was wrong... and many tabulations have shown I'm right a lot more.
Gutless.
The thing I wonder about is what happens if
a) the arrest is ruled to be illegal because it was part of an illegal military operation and it targeted a person normally protected diplomatic immunity
b) Maduro is not found guilty by the jury;
c) the ICC gets involved because of a).
Unlikely, but still.
@Treebeard:
It is reason that creates laws that forbids me to hunt you down and kill you. It is a restraint to our base impulses, but not one of fear, but calculations.
Pure reason, of course is an ideal and as such never achievable, but the degree by which we try helps us stave off the worst of our natural instincts.
But I will not further attempt to stop your personal descent into bestiality, the other pole of the system; Nature has the trait to self-correct excesses.
Utter utter utter utter BS. See below.
Celts sentence lacks a word:"We are just an empirenow" or "again".
Insert your favorite Smedley D.Butler quote here.
Trump has killed the Type II Empire and tries to build a Type I one. He will likely fail; I doubt there will be a good outcome on the Venezuelan affairs.
BTW, just learned that the cocaine price in the US dropped by 25%.
Can anyone explain to me the difference between authoritarian drug smuggling president Hernandez of Honduras that Trump pardoned and authoritarian drug smuggling president Moduro of Venezuela that Trump captured?
In regard to your blog post series: While I can see where you come from, and might be effective to mend things, I see difficulties with winning elections in the base of those proposals alone.
It might win minds, but not hearts. And hearts is what you need, especially those that think elections do not matter anymore.
And while I think that outrage over the current regime might suffice, they are not addressing the need for profound change people currently attach to the Far Right and their lies.
You need someone with Charisma and empathy, not just a guy with a suitcase of legislative proposals and consultant-speech.
Oh, and I still don't see measures how your former allies should ever, ever trust you again, beides lip service, or how you want to regain the Soft Power lost world-wide.
Trump fancies the former, and dislikes the latter. Maybe, or better likely after a personal sign of appreciation to your president.
You need someone with Charisma and empathy, not just a guy with a suitcase of legislative proposals and consultant-speech.
A while back here, possibly before you were around, I quoted someone I no longer remember who describing three individuals necessary to a successful ideological revolution. This is my own paraphrasing, and I'm not entirely sure I recall correctly, but essentially:
1) A big idea guy who thinks outside the box
2) Someone with the skills to translate those ideas into common language understandable by the public
3) A charismatic leader who can get people excited enough to rally behind those ideas
Post-FDR Democrats are able to come up with 3) from time to time--JFK, Bill Clinton (to some degree), Barack Obama, even Gavin Newsom--but are sorely in need of the other two.
Jesus was definitely one of the 3)s, and while I don't know enough history to say, he might have been that rare instance of all three types rolled into one.
Which now that I look at those words, is kind of interesting, especially for Catholics.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2026/Senate/Maps/Jan03.html
Due to the developments in Venezuela, we have decided to cut our minivacation a day short. We will have a posting on Sunday, Jan. 4 and then will be back to the regular order on Monday, Jan. 5. Thank you for being a loyal reader. Small request: Make a New Year's resolution to get one friend to join our little community as 2026 is going to be a big year.
Spreading the word.
https://electoral-vote.com/
That's the general, non-date-specific URL to the site mentioned above.
What do you think of the "Soft Secession" proposal by Christopher Armitage? Soft secession refers to blue states remaining formally within the US while increasingly refusing to cooperate with federal authority, building parallel legal, economic, and administrative systems that render federal policies unenforceable at the state level. It's a non-violent, constitutional process rooted in anti-commandeering and uncooperative federalism, distinct from outright separation or civil war. I believe it has promise to move the needle. Link to his article: https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/its-time-for-americans-to-start-talking
Without having read the article yet, what you're talking about sounds like not only a good idea, but an inevitable one.
Remember Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado?
The woman who the Trump admin said won the last rigged elections in Venezuela?
The first person rubio called as SoS?
Who Trump now says is not a legitimate president?
Trump really, really wanted that Nobel Peace Prize and he really really hates when a woman is not sufficiently subservient to him or God forbid beats him in anything.
And remember global warming?
We had 60 degrees for Xmas with tornados.
Tornados have always been a traditional part of any Christmas right?
Now we are looking at a heat wave in January.
Nothing unusual here, right
Remember how the East Wing of the White House was going to be rebuilt with "private donations"?
Nothing has been done, and nothing is planned for the rebuilding.
But a lot of "donation" money has been given to Trump.
Yes, people are tracking private donations for the Trump White House ballroom (East Wing) project, primarily through investigative journalism by outlets like The New York Times and ABC News, with Senator Richard Blumenthal also demanding transparency, but the White House initially omitted some major corporate donors, raising ethics concerns and leading to calls for full disclosure. While the White House promised transparency, they withheld names of some large companies (like Nvidia, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft) that have business before the administration, prompting ethics watchdogs and lawmakers to push for the full list, with some donors choosing anonymity but facing scrutiny.
Der Oger, you are in my opinion grabbing at excuses to express long-simmering resentment. "Oh, and I still don't see measures how your former allies should ever, ever trust you again, beides lip service, or how you want to regain the Soft Power lost world-wide."
ALL you need to do is ever, ever consider that Americans (like most peoples) are bipolar and the antimodernists have been especially angry, because our modernists have been very, very effective and strong, changing the world for the better. Something NO other nation ever accomplished during their own times of imperial power.
. I speak often of an ongoing US Civil War. In this case, the plague of our bipolar anti-modernist side got the foreign help they lacked in earlier phases and with that help they conquered our nation's capital and institutions.
WHEN , not if, we recover and resume adult modernity, are you planning to hold a grudge, since nearly all of the harm done was inflicted WITHIN America? That's pretty damn unsympathetic for an ally, especially one whose sense of history warps his view of the last 80 years of American Pax, contorting it to pretend he does not owe us a Himalayan mountain of gratitude.
How will you ever 'trust us again"? You never did, despite all the (net) good that we did. I don't expect you ever will, when Blue-Modernist America returns.
===
Likewise, you skimmed impression of my 35 proposals shows little comprehension. Getting all US CHILDREN fully into Medicare would be a huge step and make the whole outcome vastly more likely for an end to shabby isurance parasitism. Restoring emphasis on sustainability too.
Meticulous and sober PROCESS AND STRUCTURE REPAIR will impress US voters because that is exactly what impressed them enough to embrace Gingrich's Contract gambit, ending 60 years of Democratic control of Congress. (Though KEEPING those promises he never did.)
But yes, we need better generals and charisma up top. Are you criticizing me for not emphasizing THAT? Please show me what power that I have over that. Except that my California Governor - Newsom - may be able to provide it. I wish you had applied your criticism to helping my approach, rather than a general (and useless) snark.
ShowBizSoft Secession has begun at low levels. We shall see.
Now we are looking at a heat wave in January.
I'm not sure where you're located, but here in Chicago, we had a brutal cold and snowy couple of weeks in November and early December--when it wasn't actually winter yet. Since then, almost all of the snow has melted and it's supposed to reach 50 degrees F this week.
The world is upside down.
A more rational POV is that Trump isnt controlled by Putin, and has his own agenda and set of controllers.
Far be it from me to defend a bastard like Maduro, but he was ultimately an issue for Venezuelans to solve, and it is not up to the west to decide who is and is not 'legitimate'
...Trump isnt controlled by Putin, and has his own agenda and set of controllers.
I think it's self-evident that Trump is at least somewhat "controlled" by Putin, although that control may not be absolute. And there are some issues Putin cares less about that others.
In the "What a tangled web we weave" spirit, it may serve Russia's (and China's) interests to protest (too much) about US disregard for international law while benefiting from Trump's subsequent defense of such. After all, Russia is in the process of doing the same to Ukraine while China champs at the bit over Taiwan. How can Trump's US object to them doing what he has just justified on similar grounds of national interest and self-defense?
In need of exercise, I've started listening to Isaacson's "Benjamin Franklin" biography while working out. Uplifting and funny. Anyone who frets about The Collapse will find abundant American wisdom here.
David, many Democrats are doing exactly what you are saying they should do. And they should also push for immediate new elections in Venezuela with international (not American) observers (although by all accounts the last election wasn't so much stolen as nullified.
My #1 hero. Dedicated The Postman to him.
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