What ails the economy

The economy is a mess and cannot seem to pull itself out. The economy needs people to spend money to recover, but most people are suffering from the hangover that is the past few years. Housing market has tanked, gas prices up, food prices up, so many people on public assistance. What can we do?

Part of the problem with the economy is that so little of the money is going back into it because in the past ten years, the wealthy have been getting fat and the poor have been struggling.

Time to raise the minimum wage. This may take some people off public assistance and it will also cycle more money back into the economy. People will claim that raising the minimum wage will kill job growth, but that argument has been made in the past and it's not true. Poor people will spend almost all they make so it'll all end up back in the economy and the rich will still benefit.

We need another stimulus. With people poor and businesses hoarding cash, the government should spend money on things that have been neglected. Infrastructure is one. Subways, high speed rail, bridges, roads. These are all being neglected. I should be able to ride transportation between cities or take public transportation to the airport or other popular places. Most cities don't seem to have a very good system in them and getting between cities is just plain difficult for many people.

Increase the gas tax. Not all at once, but perhaps a dime a year. This will further encourage people to buy fuel efficient cars and give some money to fund some infrastructure work. The era of cheap gas is over. We need to prepare now.

Increase taxes. Can't really raise taxes on people who are struggling. The people who can afford it need to have their taxes raised. Anyone over, say, a quarter of a million dollars needs to pay more.

Tax capital gains as income. This is a huge hole that wealthy people exploit to pay 15% of their income in taxes. Yeah, I'd like to get a salary of $1 and stock worth $50 million instead of the other way around so my "income" gets taxes at 15% max instead of 30%. In fact, I'd like my current salary to be paid as capital gains, but I can't get away with that. You need to be rich to do that. Or a CEO. Or a hedge fund manager.

There will have to be cuts to Medicare and Social Security. We can't let them explode and bankrupt us. The programs were designed as a safety net and should remain there, but perhaps we need to reduce the maximum payouts or tax Social Security as income. This wouldn't affect poor people since their income would be too low.

The military will have to be cut. This one is a no brainer. There are plenty of areas to cut here.

We can solve this problem and get the economy back on track, but it's going to take people who understand the issues and are willing to compromise. Unfortunately, I think the people who can make the decisions are idiots and will steer the country and economy into the ground.