They say OWS has no agenda? Here's a draft of one

[LuckyTheDog]

Eight Things We Should Do Now

There are a lot of things we need to do if we are going to turn the U.S. around. Members of the 99 Percent Movement will have different views about long-term goals. But the following might provide a near-term legislative agenda most members could agree with.

1. Reinstate Glass-Steagall Act, which created a healthy separation of commercial and investment banks. The repeal of Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 made possible some of the worst abuses that caused the banking crisis of 2008. Clearly, repeal was a failure and we need to go back to what works.

2. Pass a real jobs bill. The proposed American Jobs Act contains a lot of good ideas, but is insufficient. Congress should pass a bill that spends even more on infrastructure, devotes more money to education and includes direct hiring modeled after the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Projects Administration.

3. Commit to letting the Bush tax cuts expire. The tax rates of the 1990s worked well and produced federal surpluses. The Bush tax cuts didn’t. We should re-impose those tax rates – first, on the wealthy and, over time, on everybody else.

4. Get the big money out of politics. There are a lot of ways in which this could be done. One of the best ways would be to create a system for public financing of campaign. But less-dramatic, intermediate steps move us in the right direction, they should be supported.

5. Overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. This will require a constitutional amendment declaring that the Constitution of the United States protects the rights of natural persons only. The rights of corporations should be limited to those outlined in statutes passed by Congress and state legislatures.

6. Review all trade agreements and renegotiate the bad ones. Free trade can be a good thing, if it is thoughtfully set up with the interests of American workers in mind. Too often, it isn’t. But trade agreements that pit American workers against low-wage foreign labor in a race to the bottom need to be altered or eliminated.

7. Rebuild America. Future generations need this one to leave them with a strong national infrastructure. If we are going to do that, we need to get started with all deliberate speed.

8. Protect health care reform and build upon what has been passed. The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect, but scrapping it is a recipe for decades more of inaction. Let’s instead concentrate on making it better over time, establishing access to good health care as a right for all Americans.