5 Ways to Beat the Plutocrats

http://www.alternet.org/5-ways-beat-plutocrats



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One: Require the rich to annually disclose the income they’re reporting to the IRS and how much of that income they actually pay in taxes.

Eighty years ago, just like today, America’s rich were routinely and massively avoiding and evading taxes.

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Two: Leverage the power of the public purse against excessive corporate executive pay. Congress couldn’t directly set limits on private corporate executive pay, yesterday’s progressives understood. But Congress could impose limits indirectly by denying federal government contracts and subsidies to corporations that lavished rewards on top executives.


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Three: Give Americans a safe alternative to private banks. For Louis Brandeis, a reform giant who also became a Supreme Court justice, prohibiting financial institutions from speculating with the savings of average Americans always remained a top priority.

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Four: Tax undistributed corporate profits. America’s biggest corporations are currently sitting on stashes of cash that have hit mega-billion levels. Money that could be invested in creating jobs sits instead in income-generating financial assets that only sweeten corporate bottom lines and executive paychecks.