Presently, most of us are on the road to debt peonage. The banks have taken over the federal reserve and treasury has put lobbyists in charge. Trump’s tax plan is not reform. It’s a travesty. Shameful!
President Obama had a hand in it. He promised the banks would renegotiate mortgages in negative equity as the quid pro quo for bailing them out in the 2008 financial crisis. There was no quid pro quo. That would mean debt cancellation.
Law enforcement is missing when it comes to the banks. Bankers commit fraud and escape jail. The attorney general protects bankers, knowing they are the major campaign contributors to the party. Obama threw in his lot with the banks and helped Wall Street capture the government on the behalf of the 1 percent.
Let’s say you were assigned to design a system from scratch. Would you not consider reforming campaign finance? Would you not get rid of the egregious distortions of campaign finance?
Would you allow campaign donors to determine who gets Congressional committee chairmanships? The price of a chairmanship is $150,000. That’s oligarchy. The system is geared to favor the big donors.
The only solution is restructuring the system. That requires many many changes — so many, it’s like writing a new Constitution. Not going to happen. Democrats are comfortable in Wall Street’s pockets. Republicans have become lobbyists.
It’s a radical and revolutionary situation. We must recognize that all this inequality and debt peonage is unnecessary. The markets can work, but there must be rules, and they must be explained.
Reverse Citizens United, which enabled the financial oligarchy to lock in its control of American politics. Add one or two justices to the Supreme Court. Enough of radicals who restrict themselves to original meanings that are now anachronistic. The Constitution must be interpreted as a living document.
Tax reform is essential but the Trump administration plan is dead on arrival. Our system taxes wages. It should tax finance and land, not wages. The land owners and banks have the money. There is more to do. First reinstate Glass-Steagall, which made it illegal for banks to gamble with insured deposits. Now the taxpayers bail out the banks when their gambles fail. Outrageous.
C. F. Baumgartner
Mercer Island
