1. Index the Federal personal exemption to the full-time federal minimum wage (what you'd earn working at the minimum wage 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year).

2. Use the full-time federal minimum wage to establish the level at which Social Security premiums (FICA) begin to be deducted from an individual's pay.

3. Tax capital gains as ordinary income.

Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage

Restructure Social Security

1. Convert Social Security to a basic income program.

2. This program would be funded by a reasonable tax on all types of income, not just earned income.

3. Basic income payments would be made to retirees, disabled and other qualified individuals based on need.

Establish a Single-Payer Health Plan

1. Guaranteed access to services

2. Choice of provider

 

3. Individuals' responsibility for caring for themselves

4. Catastrophic care and long term medical care

Protecting our Economic Ecosystem

This nation needs economic reform. The tax code needs to be restructured and simplified, while at the same time being made more equitable in terms of one's ability to pay.

Low-wage workers need a raise, and welfare recipients need a basic income and a realistic way to progress to a paying job.

Social Security needs revamping, both in terms of income and expenses of the system.

And America can no longer go on without universal health care. The future of our country demands that we not only be healthy financially, but medically as well.

We have not reached these goals in the recent past because we have tried to attack them one at a time, but such a strategy will always be doomed.

These four items -- tax reform, the minimum wage as a living wage, Social Security, and health care -- are all interrelated and interdependent. We can't solve one of them unless we solve all of them.

The plan outlined below has evolved from a number of discussions with workers, employers, economists, health-care providers, and concerned citizens. It offers, in broad perspective, the basis of a four-pronged attack on the economic problems of this nation's working people.

It will serve as the foundation for a National Economic Security Act, which I will champion when elected to the United States Senate.

Restructure the Tax Code

Somewhere along the line during the recent years of ''tax reform,'' we lost the concept of a progressive income tax, the concept that income taxes should be based on fairness and the ability to pay. As a result, the gap between rich and poor in America is growing ever wider.

We can correct this imbalance, and restore fairness in our tax system, by taking the following actions:

1. Change the personal exemption in the Federal Income Tax code to index it to the full-time federal minimum wage (what you would earn if you worked at the minimum wage 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year). Use this minimum annual gross income to establish the level at which an individual starts paying federal income taxes. The personal exemption for children in a family would be half the adult exemption. This means a family of two adults and two children would have personal exemptions totaling three times the annual federal minimum wage, and would pay income taxes only on the income above that level.

The loss in federal revenue under this plan would be made up by revising the tax brackets upward on higher levels of income.

The present personal exemption in the federal income tax code is too low.

When the federal budget was balanced some 25 years ago, the highest tax brackets for the ultra-wealthy were between 70 and 90 percent.

When those higher tax brackets disappeared, the burden to fill the national treasury fell to the lower and middle class.

Under this Economic Security Plan, with the personal exemption tied to the minimum wage, a person who makes less than the minimum annual gross income would pay no federal income taxes.

2. Use the same minimum annual gross income to establish the level at which Social Security premiums begin to be deducted from an individual's pay. People making less than the minimum annual gross income would not pay Social Security premiums (FICA), but would get credit for the income they earned.

The loss in revenue to the Social Security Trust Fund under this plan would be made up by eliminating the cap on Social Security premium payments.

Income tax tables are set up to allow for personal exemptions and dependents. Social Security payroll taxes are not. Once you earn $400 each year, Social Security taxes are paid from the first dollar earned, regardless of the family situation. Many low-income people pay far more in Social Security premiums every year than they do in income taxes.

Yet on the other end, because of the cap on Social Security payments, high-wage earners stop paying premiums once they have reached the cap ($61,200 in 1996, raised to $128,400 in 2018). Corporate CEOs pay the same amount as one of their middle-level managers who earns the maximum amount. And those middle-level managers pay the same rate as do the minimum wage workers who clean the offices at night.

With its constant rate regardless of ability to pay, the Social Security payment is regressive without the cap. The cap makes it the most regressive burden facing most wage earners.

Someone living in poverty should not be paying Social Security premiums to the government, because they need every penny to pay day-to-day living expenses. By the same token, million-dollar CEOs, entertainers, and athletes should be paying their Social Security premiums on every dollar they earn above the minimum.

3. Tax capital gains as ordinary income.

Income is income. It is not fair for earned income to be taxed at a higher rate than unearned income from capital gains. The risks investors take in speculating on securities are voluntary risks, and often pale with the risks to life and limb the average worker faces at the job site each day.
 

Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage

People who work full-time, 40 hours per week, 50 weeks a year, should be able to provide for the basics of their family's survival from the proceeds of their labors.

The concept of a living wage is as much about justice and fairness as it is about money. For that reason, I reject the lament that businesses would be forced to close if they had to pay a living wage. That kind of thinking is too painfully similar to the language used in the South before the Civil War, when plantation owners insisted that the slaves could not be freed because the economy would collapse.

In recognition of the plight of low-wage working parents, we American taxpayers are now supplementing those incomes through the Earned Income Credit. At its highest point, the credit amounts to a subsidy of between $1 and $1.50 per hour, for working parents earning up to $5.65 per hour.

Even though this supplement is paid directly to workers, the Earned Income Credit is in reality a business subsidy, one which lets off the hook those businesses which pay substandard wages.

And then, business quarter after business quarter, we watch as record profits are posted by the fast-food and designer-fashion chains whose names are synonymous with the lowest of wages. This is not fair, to either the workers or the American taxpayers.

But rather than cut funding for the EIC, as the Republicans want to do, I propose we raise the minimum wage to a living wage, thereby making many Americans ineligible for the EIC because they would be making too much money.

The issue of the minimum wage being a living wage is really about fairness. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it would be in the neighborhood of $6.50 per hour in 1996. That's $13,000 per year for a full-time worker, still not a lot of money. (The federal minimum wage was raised to $7.25 per hour in 2009 and remains at that level in 2017.)

Under my Economic Security Plan, the minimum wage would also apply to restaurant workers, who currently can legally be paid half the current minimum wage.

Also note that with the restructuring of FICA deductions to begin at the minimum wage level, the employer's contribution to Social Security taxes would begin there as well, and would only be assessed on wages above the minimum.

Restructure Social Security

We need to engage in a national discussion of how we will continue to fund Social Security. Should a fair pay-in level be based on all personal income, not just earned income? And what part should Social Security continue to play in assuring a basic minimum income for the retired or disabled?

1. Convert Social Security to a guaranteed basic income, with program funded by a reasonable tax on all types of income, not just earned income.

Up to now, the high numbers of people in the work force compared to those in retirement have allowed payment of Social Security benefits to almost every retired worker. But my generation did not have as many children as did my parents. When we reach the point that the demographics will not support the current system, we will have to change the way we look at Social Security.

If we accept Social Security as a national program set up to guarantee income security to our nation's elderly and disabled, then the reason to limit the revenue source to earned income simply disappears.

We need to consider assessing all income, including income from interest, dividends, and capital gains, at the same rate.

By the same token, everyone paying into the system under such an extended plan would become a potential beneficiary.

2. Basic payments made to retirees, disabled and other qualified individuals based on need.

Pay-outs would be made starting with those most in need, at a basic minimum level, and only then advancing to those less in need, to the point where annual income to the fund does not exceed expenses.

Once a universal health care program is established, the medical portion of Medicare and Medicaid can be folded into that program, taking it out of the Social Security system. Social Security would continue to cover basic needs, including the non-medical portion of long-term care for those in nursing homes or those needing assisted-living care in their homes.

Establish a Single-Payer Health Plan

Access to services, choice of provider, individuals' responsibility for caring for themselves, and an equitable distribution of health-care costs are the primary concerns of any universal health-care program. The three-part program in the Economic Security Plan meet those concerns.

It recognizes that a healthy population benefits the entire country, and thus funds the government's portion of health care from both the personal and corporate income taxes. It provides for catastrophic and long-term medical coverage, but it also places some of the burden for the cost of intermediate care on the consumer.

The basis of the plan is a focus on preventive medicine, along with patient involvement in the process. Under this plan, health-care is a matter between the patient and the provider.

At the low end, a basic level of health care would be available to everyone, with the choice of providers solely in the hands of the patient.

Dental, eyecare, mental health services, and alternative medicine providers would be included. The choice of which types of services, as well as which providers, would be left to the discretion of the patient.

This plan would result in the doctor or provider deciding in consultation with the patient, rather than a remote billing clerk with no medical training except a chart of approved practices, which tests or services to perform under the circumstances.

Catastrophic care and long term medical care

Catastrophic coverage, including the medical portion of long-term health care, would be paid by the federal government, from a dedicated Catastrophic Trust Fund funded through a surcharge on all income (personal and corporate). The medical portions of Medicare and Medicaid would fold into this program and disappear as a separate entity.

Health-care Conclusions

This proposed national health care system would make some level of basic health care available to everyone, encourage prevention programs such as immunizations, and early intervention, while limiting the financial risk to both the individual and health care provider.

Cost-shifting and cut-rate payments to providers by insurance companies would become a thing of the past.

This plan would eliminate the need for regulations about insurance portability, pre-existing conditions, deductibility of health care premiums and costs, coverage for family members or significant others, and a myriad of other details which now take up the time, energy, and attention of a lot of people.

It would also return personal responsibility to the health care scene, rewarding preventive medical care and good health, as well as vigilance toward the details in billings.

Protecting our Economic Ecosystem

Just as in natural systems, our economic system has a grand diversity, with many inter-related parts, each having an impact beyond its narrow scope. And, just as in our dealings with natural systems, too often we have focused our attention too narrowly, ignoring the interactions beyond the artificial boundaries we have set up.

Just as nature thrives in bio-diversity, we need an integrated approach to the diversity inherent in our economic eco-system.

In this Plan for National Economic Security, I have attempted to coordinate four interrelated aspects of our economy, using fairness, justice, personal responsibility and compassion as guiding principles.

If the concepts are sound, we can change the details as the needs, times or circumstances change. This document is intended to serve as a solid foundation on which to build economic justice and security for all people living in this great nation.