An Easy Solution to Class Warfare in America

Many Americans are disgruntled with high unemployment rates, public debt, entitlement programs that are in jeopardy, and a great many other things. The knee jerk reaction, at least on the democratic side, is to call for higher taxes on the rich. As a die hard capitalist, and a rational economist, it is very hard to support the notion that a slight increase in the tax rate of the richest Americans will solve our problems. Not only will a tax hike on job creators stifle the economy and lead to a higher unemployment rate, but it will also encourage wealthy Americans to expatriate. Besides, a few extra percentage point tax increase will not come anywhere close to solving the $15 trillion debt crisis, $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, high personal debt load, and large deficit. What we need is a real solution to the problem, and a fair one at that. Coincidentally, the two are one in the same this time.

Instead of raising taxes on the 1%, many of whom make under a million a year and create lots of jobs, America should issue a one time 50% tax on all bankers, politicians, AIPAC members, war profiteers, and media owners with a net worth of $50 million or more. Rather than randomly taxing people who produce for the economy, tax the perpetrators of our financial woes, and the ones that can afford it the most. Call it a Bailout Refund. Tax the media owners and the 100,000 members of AIPAC who lobbied for the Iraq War, and those lobbying for a war in Iran now. Tax Halliburton and the other war profiteers who bleed the American people dry with their bloated military contracts. Tax the Federal Reserve members and the bankers who profited from the bailout.

The billionaire media magnates owned and operated news networks that were so pro war that they actually called Americans traitors for not supporting the invasion. Many have forgotten the days when it was “unpatriotic” to question Bush about the WMD’s, and how it was “unsupportive of the troops” to ask if it was intelligent to fight a war for Israel’s safety. Several leaders came out after the war and criticized the media for not being impartial and inquisitive on this issue as an unbiased, free press should be. Many Americans were unaware of the fact that 90% of the American media is now controlled by 6 corporations, and many of the executives running the media outlets for these multi-national corporations happen to be zionists. Speaking of which, there are more than 100,000 Americans who are members of a foreign lobby called AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which mercilessly lobbied for the Iraq war. In fact, some of those members and former employees like Wolf Blitzer (CNN) and Paul Wolfowitz (one of the chief architects of the war) used their positions in the media and government to deceive the American people into thinking it was in our interest to perpetrate this hugely expensive operation. There is no question that the media and AIPAC members were largely responsible for America’s decision to invade Iraq, and they should be taxed for it.

Many Wall Street bankers also lobbied for this war through organizations like AIPAC, but they should be taxed for an altogether different reason. They reaped massive rewards from the mortgage-backed securities which caused the financial crisis of 2008, and are now reaping the rewards from the bailouts as well. These people should not be able to profit twice from the catastrophe they created. In fact, they are now receiving a third bailout from the Federal Reserve, which many Americans are completely unaware of.

This solution is actually one that the 1% should support because it is in their interests to do so. We need to put the question to them this way: “Would you rather have $50 million dollars in an economic system that is likely to collapse, in which those dollars will mean nothing, or would you rather have $25 million of a currency that will retain its value for at least another decade or so?” Rational multimillionaires and billionaires should support this solution. Think about it this way: a person with $20 billion is never going to spend all of that money anyway. Would they rather be hated and risk a financial collapse or a virtual revolt of the discontent, whose number seems to be growing by the day, or would they rather be liked by the people, and in far less danger of losing your privileged status?