The Monday Line: Our NMBS* 10-Point Plan for Fixing Global Economy

Steve Rattner shows on MSNBC how Romney's Proposed Plan would dig huge debt hole.

*NMBS=No More Bull Shit. We’re tired of posturing and partisan wrangling. It’s time to put common sense solutions on the table, stop beating up those in need of the social safety net, eliminate horse trading and fix the global economy. Here are 10-steps to move in the right correct direction.

1. Stop Ideological Austerity Suicide
Austerity is smothering UK and EU economic recoveries in their crib by insisting on blindly cutting without growing revenue or taxing the rich. The UK was entering a double-dip recession in March until a faux petrol buying panic crisis during the last week of monthly trading added an 81% increase in panic sales at the pump, falsely raising GDP. What will the Government do in May when reality again sinks in? Announce Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber will hold two weeks of concerts in June?

2. Raise the Freaking Taxes
The US Republican Party refuses to EVER raise taxes because of a pledge to outsider Grover Norquist (who organises primary challengers against them if they do raise them). Governments need taxes to provide services in the civilised world. Otherwise infrastructure crumbles and politicians point fingers at each other making the same arguments they made in 2009 because of GOP ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) a disease whose symptoms include a patent refusal to do anything that could help the economy because it might make President Obama look good.

George Osborne on Budget Day

3. Give George Osborne the Red Pill
The Tory Government’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne exited from playing a hunter in The Matrix this week and said he was “shocked to learn that very rich people tend not to pay taxes.” This came from an HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) report showing the UK’s highest earners pay an average rate of 10%. (It was rumoured that upon hearing the news, Mitt Romney withdrew from the US Presidential race and declared his loyalty to the Crown to save 1/3 of his tax burden. After campaign staff said they’d “get back to us on that,” it was later denied by campaign financial surrogate Scrooge McDuck.)

4. Make Sure People and Corporations Pay Taxes – Eliminate Havens & Special Rules
While this may seem a simple hypothesis, two senior BBC executives earning in excess of £100,000 pounds ($165,000 dollars) paid zero taxes because they work for a public trust and had their earnings paid into their personal services company making them 100% tax-exempt under UK law. FIX these LAWS! Enact a Buffett rule with teeth so every rich person pays the same level of tax. If you also allow global tax treaties eliminating personal dividend and corporation pass-throughs via offshore tax havens and ensure businesses pay their fair share… that would wipe out global debt vs. taking everything off the backs of the poor. Google pays little tax passing revenue through their Irish subsidiary. Amazon does similar. Flatten the code globally to 25% without exception and every nation benefits.

Mitt Romney smoke & mirrors cuts take care of top earners

5. Stop Budget Smoke and Mirrors
On Friday the MSNBC Morning Joe programme showed yet another debate on the smoke and mirror manoeuvrings of competing Administration and GOP budget and tax plans. This was an attempt to show which side is more fiscally responsible in the run-up to the November election. Analyst Steve Rattner showed how the Ryan Plan blows a deep hole in the budget and debt. The system is broken and all are arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

6. Bring Back ‘Quaint’ WWII Notion of Shared Sacrifice for All
We headed into two wars without any shared sacrifice. Now for every war casualty there are 25 service member suicides, undiagnosed TBI’s (Traumatic Brain injuries) and PTSD which leads to further violence. Ignoring these ticking time bombs in our midst is fraught with peril. Instead of urging people to shop as remote control bombs rained over Baghdad and Kabul. Now political ostriches bury their head in the sand to avoid difficult decisions in a US election year.

Letting ALL Bush era tax cuts expire is painful but needed.

7. Reduce Debt Smartly – Let Bush Tax Cuts Expire
Rattner’s charts on MSNBC showed the GOP budget emperor has no clothes. The Romney/Ryan plan would dig a deeper debt hole. The smart solution is to let all Bush era tax cuts expire. That plugs $4.5 trillion dollars back into the Treasury coffers, cuts the debt by 1/3 and shares the pain across the board.

8. Appoint an Al Gore
If every government appointed a Clinton-era Al Gore level leader to examine and clean up waste, fraud and abuse in every department and agency and make the needed cuts, there would be no need to gut social safety nets. If the Tories had first said to Deputy PM Clegg, “your mission is to go into every Cabinet Office, find and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse then we’ll see if anything else needs be done,” we’d have a much better system than this current malaise of senseless ideological cuts.

9. Fix Healthcare with Single Payer
Make universal single payer the law of the land in the US and stop monkeying around with the NHS in Britain. Open healthcare up and make it a right for all. Use huge buying pools and competition to drive down costs and eliminate waste.

10. Means Test Benefits Recipients
And finally, make means testing the law of every land for benefits and reduce/eliminate double or triple dipping of pensioners. Also eliminate the ceiling for payments into the Social Security system. It’s a tax that helps everyone live in dignity in their golden years.

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Denis G Campbell is the author of 6 books including 'Billionaire Boys Election Freak Show,' 'The Vagina Wars' & 'Egypt Unsh@ckled.' He is the editor of UK Progressive Magazine and provides commentary to the BBC, itv Al Jazeera English, CNN, MSNBC and others. His weekly 'World View with Denis Campbell' segment can be heard every Thursday on the globally syndicated The David Pakman Show. You can follow him on Twitter via @UKProgressive and on Facebook.
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