Author of a great book on James Buchanan, that is certainly worth reading. The whole thing is related to Buchanan's constitutional economics and how it underpins the Koch's strategy to take over the country (and Pence is their guy, btw). The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that has been so influential in the far- right conservative movement take over of US politics at the State and local level (see this old piece in The Atlantic, or this in The Nation) has a plan for a constitutional convention and for 10 Libertarian Amendments that she discusses in the video (towards the end, 3:30 minutes into it), that has for the most part gone unnoticed (NYTimes had a piece on it a couple of years ago here). In all fairness, I didn't pay much attention until she said balanced budget amendment. I always thought that the best shot conservatives had at entitlement reform (read privatization of social security) was with a neoliberal democrat as president (in the mold of Clinton and Obama). But it seems that they are pushing for other ways too.
PS: The book she refers to is by Mark Levin and the 11 amendments are these (according to Wikipedia, I haven't read the book, but will try to):
Impose Congressional term limits
Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, returning the election of Senators to state legislatures;
Impose term limits for Supreme Court Justices and restrict judicial review;
Require a balanced budget and limit federal spending and taxation;
Define a deadline to file taxes (one day before the next federal election);
Subject federal departments and bureaucratic regulations to periodic reauthorization and review;
Create a more specific definition of the Commerce Clause;
Limit eminent domain powers;
Allow states to more easily amend the Constitution by bypassing Congress;
Create a process where two-thirds of the states can nullify federal laws;
Hillary Clinton does not want to talk about past economic controversies. And it is easy to understand why. There is much that is troubling. But let’s not go along with her wishes. You can learn a lot by studying recent history and even more by watching how politicians react to that history.
The big “let’s move on” story of the Clinton campaign is the refusal to answer journalists. According to the Washington Post in the first 29 days after she announced her campaign she took just eight questions. The campaign’s response to all this? Blah. Reporters whining as usual.
Now, I’m not going to be impolite and focus on questions about the Iraq War which have been getting Jeb Bush in deep trouble with some liberals. Instead, I’m going to focus on economic policy which is my area of expertise. It also seems to be the focus of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
Social expenditure comprises cash benefits, direct in kind provision of goods and services, and tax breaks with social purposes. Benefits may be targeted at low Income households, the elderly, disabled, sick, unemployed, or young persons. To be considered “social”, programmes have to involve either redistribution of resources across households or compulsory participation.
Fighting back against the continued demand that nonsensical deficit reductions be achieved by slashing the nation's cherished social programs, Vermont's Independent (and perhaps the nation's only reputable) Senator Bernie Sanders says enough is enough.
1. Stop corporations from using offshore tax havens to avoid U.S. taxes.
Each and every year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due to offshore tax abuses by the wealthy and large corporations. The situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the “home” to more than 18,000 corporations.
2. Establish a Robin Hood tax on Wall Street speculators.
Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Creating a speculation fee of just 0.03 percent on the sale of credit default swaps, derivatives, options, futures, and large amounts of stock would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the job-creating productive economy, and reduce the deficit by $352 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
3. End tax breaks and subsidies for big oil, gas and coal companies.
If we ended tax breaks and subsidies for big oil, gas and coal companies, we could reduce the deficit by more than $113 billion over the next 10 years. The five largest oil companies in the United States have made over $1 trillion in profits over the past decade. Exxon Mobil is now the most profitable corporation in the world. Large, profitable fossil fuel companies do not need a tax break.
4. Establish a progressive estate tax.
If we established a progressive estate tax on inherited wealth of more than $3.5 million, we could raise more than $300 billion over 10 years. In 2010, Sen. Sanders introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act that would reduce the deficit in a fair way while ensuring that 99.7 percent of Americans would never pay a penny in estate taxes.
5. Tax capital gains and dividends the same as work.
Taxing capital gains and dividends the same way that we tax work would raise more than $500 billion over the next decade. Warren Buffet has often said that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. The reason for this is that the wealthy obtain most of their income from capital gains and dividends, which is taxed at a much lower rate than work. Right now, the top marginal income tax for working is 39.6 percent, but the top tax rate on corporate dividends and capital gains is only 23.9 percent.
6. Repeal all of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax breaks for the top two percent.
In January, Congress finally repealed the Bush tax breaks for the top one percent — households making more than $450,000 a year. But the Bush tax breaks have been continued for the top two percent — households with incomes between $250,000 and $450,000 a year. Repealing the Bush tax breaks for all of the top two percent would reduce the deficit by about $400 billion over the next decade. After President Clinton increased taxes on the top two percent, the economy added over 22 million jobs. After President Bush reduced taxes for the rich, the economy lost over 600,000 private sector jobs.
7. Eliminate the cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security Trust Fund.
If we are serious about making sure that Social Security can pay all of the benefits owed to every eligible American for the next 50 to 75 years, we don't do that by cutting benefits, we do that by scrapping the cap on taxable income so that a millionaire and a billionaire pays the same percentage of their income into Social Security as someone making $40,000 or $50,000 a year. Right now, someone who earns $113,700 a year pays the same amount of money in Social Security taxes as a billionaire. This makes no sense. Applying the Social Security payroll tax on income above $250,000 would ensure that Social Security remains solvent for the next 50 years. This plan would only impact the wealthiest 1.3 percent of wage earners; 98.7 percent of wage earners in the United States would not see their taxes go up by one dime.
8. Establish a currency manipulation fee on China and other countries.
As almost everyone knows, China is manipulating its currency, giving it an unfair trade advantage over the United States and destroying decent paying manufacturing jobs in the process. If we imposed a currency manipulation fee on China and other currency manipulators, the Economic Policy Institute has estimated that we could raise $500 billion over 10 years and create 1 million jobs in the process.
9. Reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon.
We should reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the pentagon, which now consumes over half of our discretionary budget. Much of the huge spending at the Pentagon is devoted to spending money on Cold War weapons programs to fight a Soviet Union that no longer exists. Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, has estimated that we could achieve significant savings of around $100 billion a year at the Pentagon while still ensuring that the United States has the strongest and most powerful military in the world.
10. Require Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry.
Requiring Medicare to negotiate drug prices, similarly to what the VA currently does, would save more than $240 billion over 10 years.
Dean Baker on the crisis of pension system in Detroit (discussed before here) on "All In with Chris Hayes" last night.
The message from the White House is that AIG contracts are sacrosanct while worker's pensions can be broken anytime. It does have implications for North like notions of the role of institutions, and contractual security, in promoting economic development (also discussed here before). And yes it is part of the push for privatization of Social Security.
"The 2013 Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ reports were little changed from 2012. The Social Security Trustees report showed a slightly larger shortfall over its 75-year planning horizon, with the projected shortfall rising from 2.67 percent of payroll in the 2012 report to 2.73 percent of payroll in the newest report. The reason for this small increase was the change in the 75 years covered with 2087 replacing 2012 in the projection period" (rest - see here).
