By Catherine Austin Fitts
President Obama has the challenging task of trying to persuade us that the US government should have a hand in softening the blow of income inequality.
While the President’s abilities at persuasion are significant, he must overcome the facts themselves. The US government has been a powerful force in systematically creating that inequality through authorization, appropriations, federal credit and enforcement policies – not to mention surveillance systems, invasion of privacy, suppression of government disclosure and, last but not least, criminal activities.
Yes, inequality has become a serious problem. Automation is going to make it worse.
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The way to soften the blow is to stop government policies that create it. However, politics dictate that such things continue while the President is called upon to make things look otherwise.
Here are several things that the President can do that could reduce income inequality in a manner that could create greater productivity and total income without increasing appropriations under the budget. These particular actions also have the potential to generate new revenues to the federal government and lower spending over the long term.
- Arrange for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to promulgate its final regulations on crowd funding as soon as practicable;
- Pass immigration reform legislation that offers residency and a pathway to citizenship to any foreign citizens who achieve an undergraduate or graduate degree at a US university;
- Publish the US budget on a place based basis, integrating graphic and GIS software tools;
- Require all US agencies to disclose and maintain their contract budgets and scopes of work on their websites; and
- Designate an office within the federal government, coordinated with the support of Congress, to process waivers from state and local governments that allow municipal and state entities to reduce regulatory requirements and reengineer government resources by place. Call for state and local authorities to submit proposals designed to reduce municipal and state expenses and the related tax burdens locally and/or generate employment and entrepreneurship subject to a requirement that proposals are revenue neutral or positive to the federal government.
Let the reengineering begin. Properly implemented, these ideas have the potential to generate income and budget savings in the hundreds of billions, not to mention trillions in new equities market capitalization.
