Item #5 on this list is not easy. Defining income is not easy, so an income tax is always going to be complicated. Then all the special interests want preferences for their particular activities…

Somewhat OT: I’d like to see a faction in the Democratic party stake out this basic platform on economic policy.

1) Wealth and income inequality in the US is a major problem and needs to be addressed.

2) We can do this the easy way or the hard way.

3) The easy way is for the masters of the universe to stop breaking the back of labor in the country, stop outsourcing, start hiring, pay better wages etc.. It is ridiculous that Walmart employees are often on public assistance because their wages are so pitifully low.

4) The hard way is to bring back some old-time marginal tax rates (and actually collect on them), and back it up with a beefy estate tax on amounts over a million or so (this also needs to be a tax that is actually collected.

Stuff like this would never happen, but it would provide a useful counter-balance for the hard-right nonsense that passes for mainstream US economic policy.