NOTE: I originally published this 7 November 2008... republishing after reading Save Social Security: Paul Krugman for Treasury Secretary by Robert Naiman over at t r u t h o u t
I was reading Krugman's column today, The Obama Agenda and it hit me: kaBoom! why shouldn't this guy, better than any one in Washington at reading the economic tea leaves, get tapped to serve in Washington.
Hey. The guy just won a Nobel Prize. He's a professor at Princeton University. He would advocate using tax payer dollars to create an equitable health care system. He would advocate for making sure states retain essential services, both because they are needed and to keep people employed. He's for a new New Deal and that means putting people to work on our failing hard infrastructure, like bridges, tunnels, dams, power grid. And I'm sure he'd advocate for proportional taxation... and yeah. I'm thinking that would mean the 1% will pay a more equitable share.
I always love how those 1 percenters use numbers against us. We always hear how 1 percent pays half of all taxes collected. But let's think about this for one minute (and i barely passed math):
In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth.
Doh... sounds like they are getting a good deal to me. I mean, if I understand it right: the top 10% (and this is before BushCo pushed the figures higher) have 71% of the wealth but only pay 50% of the taxes.
You see, this is the kind of crap that kills me. Not to mention that most of that money is made from industrial processes that deplete resources all over the world. and pollute our environment. so they have to pay to balance out the harm done in making all this money.
why should the bottom 41% of us always have to clean up the mess?
Anyway. I vote for Paul Krugman as Treasury Secretary. He'd explain the nuts and bolts to us in ways we can understand. And while we're at it? Let's put Bill Moyers in the FCC chairman's spot. Because it's time to get some competent and reliable outsiders inside Washington.