Labour gurus call for return to egalitarianism
Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Wednesday May 25, 2005
The Guardian
Labour should return to its founding principle of fighting poverty by increasing taxes on the rich, two New Labour thinkers have said in a policy paper.
Anthony Giddens, the originator of the Third Way and Patrick Diamond, a Downing Street policy coordinator until the election, argued for a tax on capital transfers by the wealthy and the lifting of the ceiling on national insurance contributions.{Brits can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is similar to ending the cap on SSI in the US so that it's no longer essentially a regressive flat tax for the super wealthy that burdens you less the wealthier you are. The capital transfer tax issue reflects Edwards's argument about taxes during the campaign: they should be shifted off wealth created from work and back on to the very (relatively) unburdened wealth created from having wealth.}
...
They are also cooperating with John Edwards, the Democrat vice-presidential candidate who met Tony Blair yesterday in Downing Street and spoke at the LSE on his plan to attack the special privileges of the wealthy in the US.
"Britain is still a long way from significantly reducing inequalities of opportunity," Mr Giddens and Mr Diamond said.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1491483,00.html
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