Tax system reform as suggested by Professor Ray D. Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School and the cofounder, director of the Boston College Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good. His book The 2nd Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy was one of the best seller of 2025, explaining how the U.S. income tax system became ‘a means for increasing concentrations of wealth, and how a tax system can protect democracy and strengthen an economy—or fuel an oligarchic upward redistribution of wealth and power. A country’s tax code reflects both the society and the government it finances. United States tax code has traditionally been subject to amendment based on what Madoff characterizes as a normal, even healthy relationship between private actors and government regulators. But maintenance and enforcement of the country’s tax code has changed over the past 40 years, creating what Madoff calls “a new class of tax-free Americans” equivalent to the tax-exempt nobility (“second estate”) of prerevolutionary France. Federal taxes on income and estates– intended to fund government and prevent development of a hereditary financial aristocracy– were enacted early in the Twentieth Century and originally worked well. But since about 1980, the estate tax– infested with loopholes— has been nearly abolished for practical purposes and now produces trivial income.
What used to be taxable dividends turned into large capital gains benefiting the stock owners, including very rich ones. If shareholders need cash and sell appreciated stock, of course they would owe income taxes on the capital gains (selling price of the stock minus how much the shares cost them). But capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than normal income like salaries, bank interest, and returns on bonds. Professor Madoff short and breezy book argues that two aspects of the current U.S. tax system are indefensible:
1. The very wealthy are able to avoid taxes on the main sources of their wealth, namely, capital gains, gifts, and inheritances; and
2. The very wealthy can receive immediate, limitless tax deductions for charitable donations of funds that remain under the donor’s control, even though the funds needn’t be spent immediately or perhaps ever on charitable goods and services.
Madoff briefly summarizes the attitudes of the nation’s founders toward such matters as the conferring of privilege based on wealth and birth, the “mischievous” role of an aristocracy in government, the primacy in American culture of hard work, the value of common interests, feelings, and desires among citizens, and the power of a shared sense of national mission.
Conventional wisdom has it that this is a matter of sequestering riches offshore, in tax havens. But while offshoring clearly plays a role . . . Madoff explains that much of the problem actually lies closer to home, in the US’s own tax code, which, she says, is, after the Constitution, the ‘single most important document affecting Americans’ lives’, if one of the least well understood.”
As Madoff points out, however, billionaires need not sell any stock to get cash to live on. Instead, they can borrow the money, using their stock as collateral. Borrowed money is not taxable income, so they owe no tax while living extravagantly.
The tax code may be one reason why billionaire households have raced so far ahead of mere millionaires. . . . Billionaires have ways to lower their tax bills that aren’t available to most Americans. A common strategy is to avoid salaries, which are heavily taxed. Ray Madoff, a law professor at Boston College and author of The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, points to Mark Zuckerberg’s dollar-a-year wage at Meta. Warren Buffett took an annual salary of $100,000 for decades. . . . the very fact of the rising concentration of wealth in the hands of the superwealthy means the issue of how to tax it won’t be going away, and pressure could build for ever-more populist measures, including at the national level.”
Madoff wants to get rid of the ability of ultra rich people— billionaires— to avoid having any taxable income in the first place. She wouldn’t tax them while they are alive, but would tax whoever inherits from them.
Rather than trying to fix the estate tax, Madoff would abolish it, eliminate the stepped up basis for inherited stock, and make inherited money and other gifts received taxable income for the recipients.
Bank/financial institution responsibility/government bonds need to tie to Human resources development and organic farming, organic medicine production etc to reduce the effect of fiat money alchemy; Balance of Power was written by a French economist and historian Eric Monnet. In the book he discussed how to construct systems of accountability for how bank interact with states and societies. Monnet shows that this effort twill do more than guard against unjust power; it will put the banks to work for greater, more democratic ends. Because there is a real danger to democracy in expecting too much from unelected institutions with an ill-defined balance of power. He argues the immense power given to central banks in recent decades, with little oversight and explicit coordination with the rest of economic policy, to be a symptom of a democratic crisis.
Distinction and coordination are as necessary for the balance of powers as they are for economic efficiency. To avoid an omnipotent central bank, we have to connect the central bank’s policy with all the public policies related to finance – what is generally called credit policy.
Central banks are no better placed than other institutions to anticipate or address price increases. The fact that the stability of prices is a goal of monetary policy does not mean that it should be barred from the consideration and intervention of budgetary, financial, price control, wage, and environmental policies, not to mention geopolitical stakes.
Boy and girls should separate school campus starting middle school, colleges;
There has been too much raping happening in the campus – a very unhealthy trend happening in American culture that need to stop. School need to implement religious education for major religions; The law should be established to punish movie industry and popular culture that has pornography and related unhealthy materials to the public, especially youngsters.
A freshman congressman can’t really accomplish much, but a five-person majority on a school board determines everything from local tax burdens to the very content of the next generation’s education.
Vaccine should not be required in the school as we should entourage people to rely on self immunization for survival, and so does humanity as a whole should reduce reliance on vaccine for our long term survival; The COVID-19 type of virus attack is any time possible;
More flexible policies on college tuition. Programs like nursing for example, can give more upfront loans/credits to students to pay back later in encouraging enrollments, since a large demography of U.S baby boomers will need some kind of nursing support. Government service can tie college students/ graduates school students after passing certain standardized exam for government service; the service credits can be similar to service in the army; However government service exam will be much high standards and gear towards certain department and expertise.
college should allow for self study credits validated by exam;
Limit the length of time and age limits for government service as well as physical wellness requirements. Enforce standard test for politicians entering into government service, taking part in each level of government office elections;
This probably will take several stage to develop, however, candidate should prove competent before taking part in election competition nomination.
Women need to take child parenting and child birth exams; It is going to take time to get this project in place, but it somehow should be something tie to our fiat money system as central bank long term investment in human resources – making money work for people and society at large rather than a form of corruptions ;
For homeless: suggest federal coordinate with each state government to create farming work site with simple dormitory for organic farmer and homeless who are willing to work;
Implement program of detoxification of drug addicted people to follow in order to rehab, and tie their participation progress with financial penalty or community service hours; Similarly establish community center programs of yoga and energy work exercise for people to participate as a government benefits program to replace medical subsides of Obama care;
Give farmers better financing treatments for organic production of various agriculture homestead; this can tie to bank credits and bank long term investments;
Ideas suggest by National Review Articles for Supreme Court culture changes:
Good and evil are not always what we assume. To the extent that good was inculcated in Randy Barnett, it was, as he tells it, not in the state attorney’s office but at his parents’ dinner table and by their strong example.
While coalitions fade, principles endure. Scalia never engaged ‘in the kind of jurisprudential horse-trading’ that critics admired in some of his colleagues.
Whether the Supreme Court can continue to live up to its billing – whether the ideological and institutional forces buffeting it can be subdued – remains an open question.
The abusing power of ICC should be some how held accountable; how to establish be accountability mechanism;
Israel as a country should be self reliant; U.S government have no business keep provide support to Israel;
The immigration office should start to set a certain criteria for immigrants.