Political Discussion and Commentary

After the latest failure of the Democratic party I have no confidence that they'll turn it around any time soon. We need a party with some actual policy recommendations that people can get behind. Simple solutions that the average voter can understand.. Here's my suggestions, and I'd love to know your opinions on what would be good here.

1. Tax the rich

   The top marginal tax rate during the golden age of american prosperity was 60-90%. It's currently 37%

   Fix the loopholes billionares and corporations are using to hide their money and gain those taxes back

   Given all the shenanigans the rich can do to hide their money, capital gains and alternative minimum taxes also need to increase

2. Strengthen regulations on corporations

   It's time to bring back trust busting, our anti-trust regulations have gotten too lax and corporations are doing whatever they want.

   Protect unionization attempts. We have some strong union protections that are completely being ignored and companies need to be held accountable for closing branches that attempt to unionize.

   Take stronger stances to prevent regulatory capture of vital protective agencies

   Too big to fail means too big to exist. Corporate bailouts should come with buying out a stake in the company or controlling it outright.

3. Housing and Cost of Living

   Everyday essentials are outpacing our income. Housing costs have skyrocketed to be unattainable for just about anyone. Corporate interests and investment groups should not be gobbling up our single family housing supply just to sit on them as assets and bleed people by continually raising the rent. Add an exception to this for new development especially for multitenant buildings to encourage the continued growth of the housing supply.

4. Get money out of politics

   Ban government insider trading. Members of Congress should not be able to trade individual stocks. Broad market funds are fine but no more directly profiting off of legislative actions.

   Reverse Citizens United. Corporate bribery needs to be limited

5. Simplify the Tax Code

   Other countries are way ahead of us here, they do the math and send the check. No need to keep things complicated just to keep the accountants busy and TurboTax happy.

6. Legalize Marijuana

   For a single issue party this is a little outside the scope, but it's a broadly popular position that would also increase tax revenue and decrease expense of prosecuting such a minor crime

Things not to focus on:

Ignore the culture war stuff. It's the billionaire's way of scaring moderates and dividing leftists. Trans athletes are what, like a dozen people at most. I'm sorry for the people this directly affects but it's better to not move forward than to keep moving backwards. Ideally we take a libertarian stance of keeping the government from meddling in people's personal lives.

Global policy. Look we need to maintain our alliances and trade agreements, but it's time for america to look inward and fix itself before it starts playing world police again.

Environment. This one is difficult, but it just wasn't a key factor in recent elections. As with global policy we should continue what we can (ie the Paris Climate accord) but let other countries lead the way on solutions and technology for this and come in and benefit when we can.

Forming a new party is difficult and incredibly costly. It would take the hard work of thousands of people across the country, and odds are it will just steal some democratic votes and amount to nothing. So this is all merely hypothetical, but I wanted to get people's thoughts on it