My budget plan.

Editor,

End the occupation of Afghanistan. Withdraw entirely from Iraq. Cut on-budget military spending by $200 billion. Shut down 700 military bases overseas.

End off-shore tax havens for American corporations. A corporate tax "rate" that is purported to be onerous means nothing when corporations do not pay anything in taxes.

End subsidies to agribusiness. (Preserve subsidies to family farmers.) End subsidies to oil companies and other large corporations.

Raise the limit on earnings upon which payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) are deducted to $175,000.

Restore the marginal tax rate on the highest 2% of earners to 50%, which is what it was under Ronald Reagan.

Use the power of large numbers to negotiate lower rates from private health care providers and big pharma. To increase the negotiating power of Medicare, enroll all Americans in Medicare and eliminate the wasteful expenditures of private health insurers on redundant administration, exorbitant executive salaries, marketing, and advertising.

Invest federal dollars in high speed rail, alternative energy, infrastructure repair, and education, all of which create jobs, putting wages, which are spent on goods and services, into the economy.

Institute a stock market transactions tax on the order of .0001 cent per transaction. This amounts to a tax of 1 cent on an order of 10,000 shares. Hundreds of millions of bonds, shares of stock, options, and other derivatives are traded every day on US markets. An expanded and empowered SEC could be funded easily with the proceeds from this tax.

Do not cut Medicare. Do not invade any more countries. Do not give more subsidies and more tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals.

Re: "‘Gang of Six’ in the Senate Seeking a Plan on Debt" (4/17/2011)