Let's Share Our Wealth.

[white_wolf]

I love FDR and his New Deal don't get me wrong, but there was another program out there at that time, that I think would be even more beneficial to America. The Share Our Wealth program by Huey Long. The main planks of this platform (taken from wikipeida, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_Our_Wealth) are as follows: 1. No person would be allowed to accumulate a personal net worth of more than 300 times the average family fortune, which would limit personal assets to between $5 million and $8 million. A graduated capital levy tax would be assessed on all persons with a net worth exceeding $1 million.
2. Annual incomes would be limited to $1 million and inheritances would be capped at $5 million.
3. Every family was to be furnished with a homestead allowance of not less than one-third the average family wealth of the country. Every family was to be guaranteed an annual family income of at least $2,000 to $2,500, or not less than one-third of the average annual family income in the United States. Yearly income, however, cannot exceed more than 300 times the size of the average family income.
4. An old-age pension would be made available for all persons over 60.
5. To balance agricultural production, the government would preserve/store surplus goods, abolishing the practice of destroying surplus food and other necessities due to lack of purchasing power.
6. Veterans would be paid what they were owed (a pension and healthcare benefits).
7. Free education and training for all students to have equal opportunities in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions for training in the professions and vocations of life.
8. The raising of revenue and taxes for the support of this program was to come from the reduction of swollen fortunes from the top, as well as for the support of public works to give employment whenever there may be any slackening necessary in private enterprise.

[Donnachaidh]

1. I've always been reminded of Huey when I read about the crap going on

He was someone who was born before his time. We need a Huey Long NOW.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. When I attended high school in the fifties they used surplus food

for the lunch meals, fresh and good cheese, butter, milk, meats, all kinds of stuff and much cheaper for the school to purchase.

[white_wolf]

3. Lucky you. When I attented school in the 90s and 2000s we got

frozen stuff that was likely bought in bulk from big food companies. I still remember the terrible square pizza that had tiny cubes of pepperoni.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

7. It's all about contracts and companies feeling that they might

be losing some market profits. The hell with the kids or schools well being.

[Cleita]

6. I didn't go to public school much in the fifties only

when family couldn't afford the tuition of parochial school, but I remember the cafeteria food being really good, or at least it seemed that way because it was better than my usual sack lunch of PBJ sandwiches.

[Little Star]

4. K&R

[Cleita]

5. On capping wealth, I think it was tried sometime in

history. It didn't work. The kings and his nobles became richer and the poor remained poor because they couldn't earn more than their cap. It seems the nobility were exempt. I would think that the same would happen here, with our nobility being the mega-corporations who own everything anyway, but wouldn't be touched.

[ipaint]

8. FDR was threatened by Long's popularity.

"Huey Long was poised to run for president in the 1936 election against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had risen to national prominence with his “Share Our Wealth” program, which swept the nation as the Great Depression worsened. Meanwhile, FDR adopted some of Huey’s ideas in order to “steal Long’s thunder,” while simultaneously moving to discredit him.

By 1935, Huey’s Share Our Wealth Society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country. Long's Senate office was flooded with thousands of letters daily, prompting him to hire 32 typists, who worked around the clock to respond to the fan mail. As the nation’s third most photographed man (after FDR and celebrity aviator Charles Lindberg), Long was recognized from coast to coast simply as “Huey.” One national poll found Huey to be the most attractive man in America – ahead of Tarzan.

To Roosevelt, however, Huey was “one of the two most dangerous men in America.” (The other was Gen. Douglas MacArthur.) Roosevelt sought to undercut Huey’s clout by putting Huey’s enemies in charge of federal spending and patronage in Louisiana. He ordered unproductive investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI into Huey’s finances and other dealings. Huey was also the subject of the first nationwide political poll, used by the Roosevelt campaign to assess how great a threat a Long candidacy would be to the President’s re-election.


FDR also moved to deflate Long’s appeal by incorporating some of Huey’s ideas as part of the Second New Deal, a more liberal version of his Great Depression reforms. For example, the Social Security system reflected Huey’s proposal for old-age pensions, the Works Progress Administration mirrored public works programs begun by Long in Louisiana, and the National Youth Administration reflected his student financial aid proposal."

http://www.hueylong.com/life-times/presidential-candidate.php


FDR moved left because of Long. He also worked to politically destroy him.

[cali]

9. no thanks

[Raksha]

10. Interesting! I never knew much about Huey Long and still don't,

but I look forward to learning. Sounds like he was very much ahead of his time.