Matt Harris For Congress – Campaign for a real progressive economic alternative
www.MattHarrisForTX10.com
FB: Matt Harris For Congress TX10
I announced a few weeks ago that I am running for U.S. Congress in TX-10. It has been a remarkable experience so far. People are fired up and engaged. The district is absurdly gerrymandered stretching from north central Austin over to the NW edge of Houston. But the district has become winnable by a Democrat due to population growth on the Austin end of the district and the erosion of the Republican brand due to Trump and the reign of terrible Republican policies.
There are several other Democrats in the primary and I have enjoyed getting to know them. They are all good Democrats and I will enthusiastically support whoever wins, while trying my best to be that winner of the March 6th primary. Our Democratic field is remarkably coherent on several key policy goals such as:
- Universal health care
- Climate change action
- Criminal justice reform
- Personal autonomy
- Election reform
- Citizen equality
But there are a couple of areas of difference and those differences are why I am running. American workers are forced to play in an utterly rigged economic game and the standard Democratic Party policies are inadequate to the problem of low wages. It is fantasy to believe that raising the minimum wage, adjusting worker rules, or forming more unions will change the low-wage dynamic in the U.S. and the rest of the world. While I support these measures as useful tools, I also understand that they are not enough.
Tax Shift
There is a great “sleeper idea” in the world of economics. Classical economists from the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, and Henry George, to an extended list of modern Nobel winners, recognize the linkage between wage levels and the availability of natural resources to labor. In earlier times this mainly meant availability of farmland while in modern times this control and access to a suite of resources and privileges:
- Urban living and retail space
- Access to broadcast spectrum & internet
- Aircraft landing rights
- Pollution permissions
- Mineral control
- Access to transportation corridors
- Water control
- Banking privileges
- Fishing rights
- Patent privileges
Wherever there is monopoly control of natural resources there is a “Choke point” where unrestrained private interests can extract wealth without producing anything. This monopoly power is why we have an absurd, unnatural, and unsustainable distribution of wealth. This extra income has gone by different names such as “economic rent” (classical economics), “surplus value” (Marx), and “unearned income” (U.S. tax code). The reigning neo-liberal economists scrubbed the concept from their muddled theories as it raises to many troubling questions about their drive to plunder & pillage.
The great sleeper idea is that we need to shift taxes away from wages and productive investment and onto monopoly power in all its forms. It is by this tax shift that the negotiating power for workers will be radically improved, thus raising wages overall.
Consider also the morality of taxation. The value of all privileges is socially created. Why shouldn’t society collect the value so created? Wages and private productive investment are the result of personal (or small group) efforts. Why should the gain from of these private efforts be taken by the state? The tax shift reconciles these two questions.
I am an amateur history buff and would like to close my tax pitch on a few observations. During the progressive era about a century ago there were two big competing tax ideas. One was Henry George’s proposal to shift taxation to natural resources and the other was to adopt the income tax. George’s Progress & Poverty was the best-selling book in the English language for more than 50 years (Bible excepted). It is the most famous book you never heard of. The income tax won out and it is interesting to note that the oligarchs of that era sided with the income tax, and with good reason. It plays into their hands if one takes the long view. There are a thousand dodges for an income tax while there is no escaping a resource tax. We took the wrong road a century ago, but we can get back on it.
Climate Change
Climate change is real and requires urgent action. Consistent with my tax positions, I propose we tax carbon extraction but rebate the funds regularly (monthly) to the citizens on a per-capita basis. Incentives matter. People choosing a low-carbon footprint will gain money in their account. People choosing a high-carbon will be required to pay for the damage they are inflicting on others.
We also need more research on alternative fuels from biomass that are carbon neutral (and possibly lead to means of further carbon sequestration). The transition to renewable fuels need not be a period of hardship. It could be a period of renewal and invigoration. Rather than a few giant corporations controlling the fuel supply, we might evolve to hundreds of small, local companies producing the fuel needs for the region. Incentives matter.
The creation of this “citizens dividend” could be a huge breakthrough for progressive policy. It would link citizens to good government in a positive context and with a regular reminder of the link. We could also build on it as we shift taxes further. Taxes in natural resources (coupled with wage tax reductions) are positive for the economy and it is likely that the dividend could be grown beyond the carbon extraction portion. This would do even more to strengthen the bargaining position of wage earners and small businesses.
Appeal for support
I am running on the Bernie model of small contributions. If you like the program I am proposing, then please drop by my site and express that support. It costs money to run.
Peace,
Matt
P.S. If you are interested in learning more about the tax shift a good place to start is with the Schalkenbach Foundation where I served as a board member for 9 years.
schalkenbach.org