From: Voter
To: Frank Moore
Subject: Maximum and Minimum Income
Dear Frank,
I’m in favor of minimum income, but I’m even more in favor of maximum income. How much does anyone need per year to have a comfortable and enjoyable life: $100,000, $200,00, 1 million, 1 billion?
Income that exceeds the maximum could be put aside for these people’s old age pension (up to the maximum yearly income for a predicted life of 100 years – if anyone lives longer than that, the state could pay for the remaining of their years at the same rate). To offset their additional income, the excess could be donated to a social cause of their choice: education, environment, medical research, etc.; or they could pay decent wages to their gardeners, housekeepers, nannies. It would promote a natural redistribution of wealth. Men would readily hired their wives and adult children and keep them productive (and the money in the family). Nothing wrong with that; they would all be allow to earn the maximum.
Income shouldn’t even be taxed. All taxes should come from spending (food, education and health excluded) — those who buy huge luxury items (because they make much more than most) would pay more into the national welfare than those who barely get by and thus cannot afford, say, an ocean liner, one or two oversized house or a private plane.
Even rich visitors from out of the country would have to pay the sale tax; therefore, the drug dealers, the monarchs, the descendants of rich families (so many of them all over the world) would all have to pay to use their money here. (Don’t worry after the initial shock, they would all come back because this country would more than rock — it would be transformed.)
Importation of goods, new or used, would be controlled. (No loop holes for the multi-millionaires.)
CEOs wouldn’t have the incentives to stick it to everyone else because it wouldn’t increase their bottom lines anymore. Massive layoffs for the profit of a few would be obsolete.
The rewards for forward-thinking projects would become intrinsic rather than monetary. Artists could make a living finally. Education would be for education-sake again. Universal Health would not even be an issue because the state would have the money to support it, and the CEOs of insurance companies would have lost their incentives to prevent it. The very rich would finally have another reason to become creative and to encourage creativity in others. Those with limited capabilities would be able to have a decent living, too, no matter what jobs they would hold. (Have you ever thought what this world would be in a month if no one would pick up the garbage off the curb twice a week?)
I can see so many benefit to a maximum income concept. And it doesn’t have to be a meager maximum either. It can be quite large. And it can all be done within the spirit of entrepreneurship this country values so much. Everyone could have access again to the American Dream of starting something small and make it grow. Just that when the baby is grown, it’s grown, but it is not permitted to turn into a pig and eat up its neighbors.
Your thoughts on that, Frankie dear?
From: Frank Moore
To: Voter
Subject: Re: Maximum and Minimum Income
As i promised … I totally agree about a maximum income. My tax plank is in fact a maximum income with some flexability. [There will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual incomes exceeding these limits.] This takes the greed and the addiction for obscene profits out of the picture … especially in combination with the other planks in my platform. This greed and this addiction dangerously warps our society on every level … culture, politics, education, science, health, environment, etc. They have limited progress down into the service of the pursuit of obscene profits.
Because each person will get $12,000 annual minimum income from the age 18 onward and will have complete health care, growing old is no longer a scarey proposition. People will have many choices fitting their needs and desires.
You are right, guaranteed minimum income tends to raise wages and benefits because the workers are not desperate. When people do not have to save for their old age, for health insurance, and for education, they will have more money to spend, to start small businesses, to run small farms, etc., etc., etc. This is especially true when a family of any type [or a community made up of families] combine their money together.
In freedom,
Frank Moore
