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On March 26, I reminded everyone that the key problem facing the United States today is the massive disparity between the wealth controlled by a tiny fraction of the population - the Super-Rich, the top 0.5% - and the wealth controlled by all the Rest of us. This enormous gulf threatens all our most fundamental goals as a nation: Peace, Prosperity, Equal Opportunity, Freedom, and Justice for all.
We should consider supporting candidates for office only those who explicitly recognize that our first priority must be to put in place policies and practices that will begin to reduce the vastly unequal distribution of wealth that most surely will lead our country to moral, political, and economic ruin if we do not get it under control soon.
We should consider supporting candidates for office only those who explicitly recognize that our first priority must be to put in place policies and practices that will begin to reduce the vastly unequal distribution of wealth that most surely will lead our country to moral, political, and economic ruin if we do not get it under control soon.
The key policies to put in practice first, I said, might be -
1. Add a strong, steeply graduated inheritance tax,
2. Tax capital gains the same as earned income, and
3. Fund all public schools equally and adequately.
But what about adequate access to quality health care for all? Adequate security in all neighborhoods? Comparably respectful, fair, and just treatment for all Americans in the judicial system: by the police, by the legal system, by correctional officials? Without a far better balance in all these areas, the U. S. will forfeit its claim to hold as self-evident that all people are born equal with the same innate human rights.
4
Without equal education and health care, we have no chance of providing approximately equal opportunities to succeed. But what can be done to equalize access to high quality health care for all?
This is a complex issue, involving at least three different things:
(1) the cost and effectiveness of health insurance,
(2) the cost and availability of drugs and medical supplies, and
(3) the accessibility, quality, and cost of health-care facilities.
Insurance:
Everyone of us must be insured, even if the cost of insuring the Poor must be covered entirely by public funding. Decades of experience have proven conclusively that uninsured people are less healthy than insured people. Unequal health means, if nothing else, unequal opportunity for advancement.
The uninsured do not have regular check-ups. They do not seek medical care until long after their symptoms have become acute, if they ever seek help at all. The uninsured Poor can't afford to be as careful about their health as anyone should be. If we mean it that each of us has an inherent right to equal opportunity, we need to secure at least basic health insurance for everybody.
Also, policies must be clear and firmly enforced that prevent a few giant insurance corporations from keeping health insurance costs high by making it difficult for new companies to enter the health insurance market to compete at lower prices. In any case, in order to seek equal opportunity for all, we must not elect any legislator or executive who does not fully embrace the principle that good health insurance is necessary for all of us.
Drugs:
Generic and other relatively low-cost drugs available in other safety-conscious countries, like Canada, the European nations, Japan, and others, must be available in the U. S. as well. When a widely used drug's patent protection runs out, it must become available as a generic in America, rather than being replaced by a new, slightly improved version of the original drug. Both the proven and the new should be available.
For example, insulin derived from animals was used safely in the U. S. for generations and is still used in other countries at relatively low costs. This type of diabetes treatment should continue to be available here at a drastically lower cost than the newer and more expensive human-derived insulin. Generally, if any safe, low-cost drugs are not manufactured and sold in this country, their importation must be legalized now.
If additional funding to prove the safety of the lower-cost alternatives is required, it must be made available in order to provide equal access to good care for all: Rich, Poor, and In-Between. We need to ask, Why do many drugs cost more in the U. S. than they do in other countries?
Finally, strict enforcement of commerce laws against monopolies and cartels in pharmaceuticals, as elsewhere, must be demanded by our elected representatives.
Health Care itself:
Quality health care is expensive. It just is. It requires expensive supplies and equipment. It demands highly educated and skilled personnel, and it is labor-intensive at all levels. Even the poorest among us, however, have a right to receive at least the quality (and quantity) of health care available on the average to the others of us. So, the public funding providing health care must be adequate, without being wasteful.
This is a difficult balance to reach. But we need to be sure our policies and practices are based on the principle that it is better for the health care available to all to be adequate, accepting the risk of once in a while over-paying slightly, rather than undermining equal access to good health for everyone.
In the health-care field as in all others, we need for all those we elect to represent our interests to show us they are committed to the principle of equality of opportunity for all.
5
Big money makes a big difference in the judicial system. In a free and democratic society, until proven guilty of any legal wrongdoing, an individual is presumed too be not guilty. Wealthy people in fancy neighborhoods or posh offices are indeed presumed innocent, and they have excellent lawyers at their beck and call to protect them and all their legal rights and prerogatives if their actions should ever be called into question. The rest of us are more likely to be exposed to personal and regional bias, and many have to depend on meager legal resources for support.
And besides, many - especially, it appears, especially young African-American men - are presumed to be guilty unless they can prove they are not. Treatment is not equal. As good Americans, we can't feel good about this, but what can we do about it?
A beginning would be to eliminate the "bail or jail" system. In many, perhaps most courts, if an accused person can't afford bail, she or he goes to jail before trial. If you can pay, you go home until trial; if you're too poor to pay, you go to jail. This seems to contradict so obviously the motto above the door of the U. S. Supreme Court "Equal Treatment Under the Law" that it is astonishing that this practice has been so widespread so long. But the right solution to the problem might be to keep in custody anyone - no matter how rich - who has been credibly accused of a truly serious crime.
A second step would be to prevent judges from being elected. Having judges elected is an obvious way to promote corruption: since big money controls elections, judgeships go to the highest bidder... Okay, that's an exaggeration, but it's got a germ of simple truth.
How can we improve the quality of public defenders? We need more of them, and we need to improve the quality of the public defense system overall.
We should not support any candidate who doesn't agree with us that basic reforms are urgently required in the justice system in order to improve equality in America.
And speaking of Big Money in elections: we've got to find a better way to fund elections.
A basic first step would be to clarify the law: Corporations - large or small - are not "persons." They do not have the civil rights guaranteed to persons. It is not unconstitutional to limit (or eliminate) the amount of corporate money that can be contributed to election campaigns or to political action groups during campaign seasons.
Second, campaign donors who give more than $5,000 to any candidate must be publicly disclosed. There is no good reason for not requiring disclosure and many good ones for requiring disclosure.
Big corporations, if properly managed for the public good, can provide bountiful benefits; but - particularly in their huge, multi-national forms - they threaten every individual. Their reason for existing is to make money for the relatively few who own them, and they must and will keep their eyes, minds, and vast resources focused on profits. Easy profits often come from powerless individuals, whether clients, employees, customers, or competitors.
"Too big to fail"? is simply "TOO BIG." We need laws and law-enforcement institutions devoted to protecting individuals, communities, and society in general from the rapacious corporations that have come to be and will continue to proliferate unless we are ready steer them down the road to progress and not across our property, our rights, and our well-being.
Big corporations making big profits? Fine. Big corporations limiting the possibility of employees to make decent wages in safe and humane working conditions? or eliminating the opportunity for new firms to enter the industry? Unacceptable.
And besides, many - especially, it appears, especially young African-American men - are presumed to be guilty unless they can prove they are not. Treatment is not equal. As good Americans, we can't feel good about this, but what can we do about it?
A beginning would be to eliminate the "bail or jail" system. In many, perhaps most courts, if an accused person can't afford bail, she or he goes to jail before trial. If you can pay, you go home until trial; if you're too poor to pay, you go to jail. This seems to contradict so obviously the motto above the door of the U. S. Supreme Court "Equal Treatment Under the Law" that it is astonishing that this practice has been so widespread so long. But the right solution to the problem might be to keep in custody anyone - no matter how rich - who has been credibly accused of a truly serious crime.
A second step would be to prevent judges from being elected. Having judges elected is an obvious way to promote corruption: since big money controls elections, judgeships go to the highest bidder... Okay, that's an exaggeration, but it's got a germ of simple truth.
How can we improve the quality of public defenders? We need more of them, and we need to improve the quality of the public defense system overall.
We should not support any candidate who doesn't agree with us that basic reforms are urgently required in the justice system in order to improve equality in America.
6
And speaking of Big Money in elections: we've got to find a better way to fund elections.
A basic first step would be to clarify the law: Corporations - large or small - are not "persons." They do not have the civil rights guaranteed to persons. It is not unconstitutional to limit (or eliminate) the amount of corporate money that can be contributed to election campaigns or to political action groups during campaign seasons.
Second, campaign donors who give more than $5,000 to any candidate must be publicly disclosed. There is no good reason for not requiring disclosure and many good ones for requiring disclosure.
6
Big corporations, if properly managed for the public good, can provide bountiful benefits; but - particularly in their huge, multi-national forms - they threaten every individual. Their reason for existing is to make money for the relatively few who own them, and they must and will keep their eyes, minds, and vast resources focused on profits. Easy profits often come from powerless individuals, whether clients, employees, customers, or competitors.
"Too big to fail"? is simply "TOO BIG." We need laws and law-enforcement institutions devoted to protecting individuals, communities, and society in general from the rapacious corporations that have come to be and will continue to proliferate unless we are ready steer them down the road to progress and not across our property, our rights, and our well-being.
Big corporations making big profits? Fine. Big corporations limiting the possibility of employees to make decent wages in safe and humane working conditions? or eliminating the opportunity for new firms to enter the industry? Unacceptable.
7
The vastly unequal distribution of wealth in the U. S. today
will lead our country to moral, political, and economic ruin if we do
not get it under control soon. We should all consider supporting
candidates for office only those who explicitly recognize that our first
priority must be to put in place policies and practices, like those I have mentioned, that will begin to restore a more just and rational and more efficient balance of economic power and control.
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