A Liberal Reform Policy

I have long been a proud liberal. A liberal is someone who is free from dogmatic views, who favors proposals for reform, who is open to new ideas, and who is tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others. As a liberal, I’d like to see massive reform throughout our country. One of the first things I’d like to see is a change in how the government taxes and spends our income. Here’s my proposal. First, we have a flat tax; no more loopholes for the wealthy and for corporations. Second, Congress should establish a baseline of financing for every essential government function. Today more than half of our country’s discretionary budget (the part that isn’t already earmarked for Social Security, Medicaid, and so forth) goes to military spending. One reason is that every congressperson tries to get defense money spent in his or her district. That means the military budget is full of pork – and lethal pork at that. But what would it actually cost to protect the United States (including its overseas bases and embassies) from attack? That would be called our defense budget. What would it cost to keep our highways, roads, railways, and waterways intact? That would be our infrastructure budget. What would it cost to provide health care and necessities to those in need? That would be our public welfare budget.

The complete list of indispensable services would be funded by Congress based on their calculations of essential need. Yet everything else would be funded according to the wishes of the American people. How? By allowing us to earmark our taxes to the programs we want. What would mine look like? Well, I wouldn’t give a penny to farm subsidies. Those are not essential and they harm poor farmers overseas. I wouldn’t give a penny for corporate welfare. That is simply wasteful. I wouldn’t give a penny to war-making capabilities. Instead we can fund multinational peacekeeping forces. I would gladly designate my tax money to fund better public education, the arts, foreign development assistance, and universal healthcare. I’m sure other people would disagree with my choices and earmark their taxes for more defense spending and ignore the arts altogether. But that would be democracy in action. And it would help limit the corruption and arrogance of our present system. Now that’s liberal!