1. Raise the minimum wage to an actual living wage. $15 or $16/hour. We'd be able to cut social programs left and right. 2. Close tax loopholes. All that "offshore accounts" bullshit. And no more corporations tax-dodging without consequence. 3. Regulate the maximum amount CEO's of companies can take home. No one needs those fucking million dollar bonuses for tanking companies like we saw in '08. 4. Restrict corporate campaign funding. Corporations are NOT people. These seem like no-brainers to me. There are many other steps we could take, but I gotta jet.
About #3, Swiss tried to cap the pay of CEOs to 12x of that of the lowest worker and they failed. Do you think something in this direction should be done? What you are suggesting is a more "social" capitalist country. Opponents of those changes will hop on the "our country is turning to a communist country" wagon and deeply ingrained communism-hate that has been bread in most of us for the past 30 years will resurface... I hope it works out
There's no reason to cap pay if your marginal tax rates are high enough at the top end to make getting paid more nothing but a generous donation from your company to the government. If, say, the marginal rate on earnings over a million dollars were 90%, then all the board is doing by paying their execs more than a million is giving money away, then I'd say they have a stronger incentive to invest in equipment and people than to increase top earners' compensation. It's a remarkable easy fix to a problem that doesn't have to even exist.
A 90% marginal rate on personal earnings is a bit ridiculous. In order to get to that point at a million dollars, you'd most likely have taken away $750,000 already. Secondly, have you heard of the one-dollar CEOs? A lot of tech company heads, because they have so much secondary income through shares of the company, can avoid paying that 90% personal income tax by making their salary just one dollar. I think what we need isn't so much a higher income tax rate (especially on wages), but bringing the tax rate up on investment earnings over certain thresholds. A capital gains tax of only 15% when the income tax for the same amount is 35% is kinda just asking for people to redirect all their income in that direction.