Tuesday, February 07, 2012

DFL Precinct Caucus - Tonight.

My Ramsey Ward 1 - Precinct 1, meeting will be 6:30 pm, at Ramsey Elementary. I hope and intend to be a delegate going on to Senate District Caucus. Tonight platform resolutions will be proposed, for DFL party review, and for later caucus voting, if approved at the precinct level for advancing. I have four, per this screenshot:

as always - click to enlarge and read


The logic is simple. First is self-explanatory, on intent, and because federal Constitutional law was alleded by a majority of the Citizens United justices to be at issue, the Minnesota DFL cannot amend things but can express a will to aid reforms at all needed levels.

Second, during the Bush years the NSA was spying on citizen communication, with the aid of phone service providers such as ATT, etc., and the federal government passed legislation that was signed into law that people spied upon could not sue the phone companies for damages. All that stuff is wrong, and the second item addresses the problem.

Third and fourth, are two parts of aiming to tax the rich fairly. The third item looks at income taxation, while the fourth proposes a luxury level property tax on McMansions. You live that way, you pay extra for the privilege. I am unaware of whether any other proposal aimed at taxing the rich fairly has looked beyond income tax, but there is no cause to so limit scrutiny and reform.

Having two tier tax rates, standard and for marginal assessed value above a luxury rate triggering value could be a start to having graduated residential property taxes, instead of a flat rate that hits the least able to pay at the same rate as applies to all the assessed value of the wealthy's McMansion excesses. Accumulated wealth, as well as income could be taxed, beyond taxing real property. The aim always would be to avoid flat or regressive taxation. And of course to exempt those below certain thresholds, where the tax would impose to greatly upon people barely surviving under the rules of things and the wealth distribution and the income distribution that now exist. In the best of worlds the great present disparities would never have been permitted to come about, but we do not live in the best of worlds.

Please pay attention to other platform resolution proposals. I expect environmental, stadium, choice, gay civil rights, and other issues will all be addressed by other people advancing their proposals. Others probably will overlap what I will be submitting, but I thought it worthwhile to at least suggest language, and to initiate the notion of McMansion luxury tax rate - two tier approaches, since the wealthy have had it far too good for far too long, with it worsening during Reagan and the two Bush presidencies, per the tax policies of those gentlemen.