The Federal Reserve Board is already empowered under Section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to reform monetary policy to discourage non-productive uses of credit, to encourage accelerated rates of private sector growth, and to promote widespread individual access to productive credit as a fundamental right of citizenship. The Federal Reserve Board needs to re-activate its discount mechanism to encourage private sector growth linked to universal capital ownership opportunities for ALL Americans.
The Federal Reserve, which has been largely responsible for the powerlessness of most American citizens, should set an example for all the central banks in the world. Members of the Federal Reserve need to wake up and implement Section 13, Paragraph 2, which directs the Federal Reserve to create credit for local banks to make loans to finance economic growth. We should not destroy the Federal Reserve or make it a political extension of the Treasury Department, but instead reform it. The Federal Reserve no longer should be controlled by government. Instead, the American citizens in each of the 12 Federal Reserve Regions should become the owners and regulate the monetization process. The result will be that money power will flow from the bottom up, not from the top down, not for consumer credit, not for credit that doesn't pay for itself or non-productive uses of credit, but for credit for productive uses to expand the economy's rate of responsible and environmentally enhanced growth.
Further Economic Measures
Further economic measures will be needed to address the recession and recovery.
To meet the full costs of the government and start paying down its debt, a single tax rate should be imposed for all incomes from all sources above personal and family exemption levels so that the budget could be balanced automatically and even allow the government to pay off the growing unsustainable long-term national debt. The exemption should be sufficient to meet each citizen's or family's common domestic needs. The poor would pay the first dollar over their exemption levels as would the hedge fund operator and others now earning billions of dollars from capital gains, dividends, rents and other property incomes which under some tax proposals would be exempted from any taxes. Other personal taxes, such as payroll taxes, should be phased out. Remove all tax loopholes to eliminate corporate and personal tax avoidance, and business subsidies. Pay out of general revenues for all promises for Social Security, Medicare, government pensions, health, education, rent and subsistence vouchers for the poor until their new jobs and ownership accumulations provide new incomes to substitute for the taxpayer dollars to fill these needs.
To encourage full payout of corporate pre-tax earnings and finance new capital formation through the issuance and sale of new shares, dividends should be tax-deductible at the corporate level, enabling corporations to reduce their tax liability to zero. Dividends should be taxed as personal consumption incomes, except when used to pay for "qualified" shares (i.e., shares meeting required standards) held within each citizen's tax-sheltered trust account. To pressure corporations to finance their growth, other than with retained earnings and corporation debt (neither of which creates any new owners), and pay out their full earnings as dividends to their actual owners, the corporate tax rate should be raised to at least 90 percent.
Leadership And Resolve
To overcome the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic threatening our lives and our economy will require leadership, resolve, scientific knowledge, planning and resources. We must adopt laws promoting major reforms in monetary policy, central banking, tax and other laws for establishing a sustainable, resilient and just economy. Through a new visionary political and economic paradigm, we can build for EVERY person a more environmentally sound and sustainable economy that secures and enhances our personal futures, with preparedness to deal with future crises.
One sign of hope is the pandemic has turned millions of people into good neighbors with a sense of realization that we are all interdependent on each other. Hopefully that can translate to reforming the system so that ownership and power concentration can be reversed with EVERY child, woman, and man having the right to property and equal opportunity access to the means of acquiring and possessing property to enhance the economic security, safety, and well-being of ALL. This will ensure inclusive prosperity and economic justice as our nation progresses into the future in harmony with all the people on Earth.
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Note: Some of the opinions expressed in this article are mine and not CESJ's. Dawn Brohawn, Michael D. Greaney, and other CESJ colleagues contributed to this article.
Appendix
Immediate Action Recommendations
The following assembled recommendations have been proposed, including the allocation of trillions of dollars in emergency stimulus in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic:
1. Substantially Increase Our Healthcare Capacity
" Nationwide stay at home and physical distancing orders are necessary to stem the spread of COVID-19.
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