10. Put the federal government " in the form of civil service employees not political appointees " in charge of all elections, and mandate simple written mail-in ballots and online voting as well as in-person voting with every vote receiving a paper receipt, showing how each voter voted. Elections should not ever be the responsibility of a party that is in power, or of any elected official like a Secretary of State. (Obviously the likelihood of election hanky panky is vastly greater for someone who has to face the voters than workers who simply work for the state on a salary, regardless what party is in power. Even a MAGA-wearing mouth-breather ought to recognize that reality. )
11. Declare a national education emergency, and provide federal aid to hire additional teachers in any school district where elementary school classrooms have more than 25 students. Also provide federal funding for child care of pre-school children, which would be the best jobs program the government could offer, hands down. (Another no-brainer that should be hugely popular.)
12. Provide federal funding for free mass transit in every city, and a subsidy for intercity rail travel to make it affordable to all. (If cities in Europe can do this with their much costlier and modern mass transit systems, so can we with our much smaller systems.)
13. End the corporate offshoring of profits and other tax dodges. If companies want to sell their products in the US, they either have to make them here or they have to pay the taxes on profits they earn producing them abroad. Foreign taxes paid by corporations should not be deductible in calculating domestic profits taxes due. (Again, almost nobody but corporations and big financial investors would back this.)
14. Declare everyone of every age eligible for Medicare, and expand Medicare immediately to cover the costs of Parts B and D for all. Eliminate Medicaid and terminate the stealth Medicare privatization program deceptively dubbed Medicare Advantage. (Since everyone would be on government healthcare companies would no longer have to offer private insurance, which employees usually have to contribute premiums to and pay co-pays on, so there'd be both instant savings for workers and companies, and good grounds for workers to demand raises or to organize a union if the employer doesn't do that.)
15. Ban high-speed computerized trading and tax all short-term trading on both the buy and sell side at 1 percent of each trade. (Since this measure would raise vast sums to support the above proposals, and most Americans if they own stocks at all are buy-and-hold investors and mostly have their stocks in tax-deferred retirement funds anyhow, they would not be impacted at all.)
That's only a start, and some of these measures would surely be challenged in court, but making these moves would show a will of a real People's Party to govern in the interests of us and not of the moneyed interests " corporate and individual.
And yet, not one of these 15 ideas is being proposed much less being acted on or promoted by the Democratic Party or even by more than a handfull of its elected politicians. Why? Because the Democratic Party is not a people's party. It's a party of, by, and for the rich disguising itself as a party for ordinary people.
I encourage readers to send in other good proposals for a real People's Democratic Party wish list.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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