The Dual Problem: Policy Math AND Corruption
Both conditions are true simultaneously. They must be solved together, not sequentially.
The Policy Math Works
Workers pay a massive combined burden that could be restructured progressively. Wealth taxation plus elimination of private extraction could genuinely lower worker costs. The numbers are clear. A worker making $60,000 currently pays $30,000 to $40,000 in combined public taxes and private extraction. Comprehensive reform could reduce this burden significantly while improving services.
Progressive taxation of wealth and capital can generate the revenue needed for universal services. Eliminating insurance company extraction, pharmaceutical price gouging, landlord rent-seeking, and consulting firm waste would dramatically reduce costs. The math demonstrably works.
Government Is Captured
Private interests control government through campaign finance, revolving door employment, regulatory capture, and vendor lock-in. Any new revenue stream becomes another extraction point unless this is addressed. We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. Healthcare reform becomes subsidies to insurance companies. Infrastructure spending becomes contractor grift. Education funding becomes consultant extraction.
Without addressing corruption, progressive taxation just creates new opportunities for extraction. The wealthy will capture the revenue stream through procurement, contracts, subsidies, and regulatory favoritism. We’ll tax workers to enrich consultants and contractors.
Why They Must Be Solved Together
Solving policy math without addressing corruption means new extraction points. Progressive taxation without anti-corruption becomes Democratic party status quo: tax workers, pay consultants, deliver nothing.
Addressing corruption without solving policy math means government can’t deliver services. Republican deregulation and privatization without progressive taxation means workers pay more for worse services through private extraction.
Both problems must be solved simultaneously. Progressive taxation to fund universal services. Anti-corruption to ensure those services are delivered efficiently. Break monopolies to eliminate extraction. Worker ownership to build alternatives. This integrated approach is detailed throughout our platform.
The dual problem requires dual solutions: restructure revenue AND eliminate corruption. Progressive policy AND anti-extraction enforcement. This is why our platform addresses both simultaneously, showing how breaking corruption enables progressive taxation, which funds universal services and worker ownership.