{"id":1054,"date":"2009-05-18T19:35:33","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T19:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newwf.benfredaconsulting.com\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2022-01-31T22:33:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T22:33:29","slug":"a-just-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/a-just-society\/","title":{"rendered":"A Just Society"},"content":{"rendered":"
In case you thought income inequality wasn\u2019t bad enough, the 2008 recession made it worse.\u00a0September Census Bureau<\/a>\u00a0stats for 2008 household income show a decline in incomes across the board, but less of a decline for those in higher brackets.<\/p>\n If we are to live in a just society we need to adequately develop effective programs for eradicating poverty and shifting toward greater income equality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is pretty clear that to move in that direction will take large and long-term public investment. Such public financial capacity will come mostly from taxation and some modest \u201cearned income\u201d that comes to the government through<\/a> license and regulatory fees. This can be a more conscious means of making government move active in reducing poverty and to support revenues to make the reduction and abolition of poverty an ongoing part of government\u2019s work.<\/p>\n 1. The government can charge licensing and regulatory fees for the use of public land for commercial recreation enterprises and for natural resource mining. So too with other public assets such as the broadband (satellite) foundation for a wide range of commercial electronic uses. This includes electronic financial transactions, the scale of which is so great that even a very small transaction cost would be entirely reasonable and easily assimilated by business.<\/p>\n 2. Procurement: The model borrowed from the private sector here will be along the lines of Wal-Mart\u2019s company operations. Just asWal-Mart<\/a>\u00a0creates the market price to ensure consumer affordability, so to can government negotiate price and conditions of labor, both to improve life for low-income workers and to reduce cost to the public treasury through discount pricing. Imagine if the purchase of police cars was a government-negotiated transaction; if the purchase of paper was made on the basis of cost-saving and environmental protection; if school building produced employment for low-income families living near schools and was the basis of a greening program using new technologies (perhaps invested in by government); and gas for school buses was purchased in bulk.<\/p>\n 3. Public mandates: There are a variety of \u201ccommodities\u201d that are produced through public policy and then turned over to the private sector. An example of this is\u00a0student loans<\/a>, which have been guaranteed by the federal government and administered for profit through private enterprise. Recently, the Obama administration closed down this industry so that loans can be more efficiently and cheaply made available with profits accruing to the public treasury. This example can be expanded on quite a significant scale. For example, auto insurance, which is required in order to drive a car is a commodity created by the government and could also be managed in a similar fashion to student loans.<\/p>\nHere are some ideas of how to do that:<\/h4>\n