PROJECT 2029 – PART FIVE – WHAT CAUSED FAILURE TO SOLVE CORE PROBLEMS SUCH AS AFFORDABILITY

The failure to solve core problems including affordability, a lack of good paying jobs for the working class, and wealth inequality was caused by a corrupt political legal and economic system created by Republicans, corporations and the wealthy right-wing since the 1970s after the Powell Memo in 1971 launched an organized attack on democracy and the progressive policies of Democratic President FDR’s New Deal. With the New Deal, FDR and Democrats restored the economy and lost jobs after Republican policies caused the Great Depression in the 1930s. The Powell Memo was a confidential 1971 blueprint written by corporate lawyer Lewis F. Powell Jr. for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Memo urged American businesses to aggressively counter left-wing social movements, consumer protection, and environmental regulations by actively shaping public opinion, academia, media, and the courts. Shortly after writing it, Powell was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since the 1970s, the corrupt political, legal and economic system attacked democracy and deceived corporate Democrats including Clinton and Obama who accepted and supported destructive trickle-down Republican economic policy that was first implemented by Republican President Reagan that had been conceived and promoted by economist Milton Friedman. The trickle-down policy suppressed what should have been tax revenue from corporations and the wealthy top 1% of Americans to fund solutions to core problems created and delivered by the federal government and transferred the wealth back to corporations by creating tax cuts for billionaire oligarchs and corporations who stole wealth from 99% of Americans with reduced wages and an increased burden of taxation on poor and middle-class Americans. Republicans continued the attack on democracy by putting money into politics created with tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy top 1% so that the theft of wealth would continue and destroy affordability. The money in politics from wealthy corporate donors eventually took control of Democrats and enabled election of Republican majorities to stack the Supreme Court with justices appointed to make corrupt legal decisions such as Citizens United in 2010 and other decisions during Trump’s time in office that gutted protection of civil rights and voting rights. As mentioned, the Trickle-down policy blocked the funding of any solutions to the core problems coming from the federal government, and created an oligarchy supported by Trump’s Republican party which ran the oligarchy as a lawless, fascist autocracy since 2025.

In a recent post, Reich describes how corporate Democrats supported the destructive Republican polices including trickle-down economics and regressive tax cuts that blocked solutions to core problems including affordability that should come from the federal government.

The Last Stand of the Corporate Democrats

Another cause of the core problems is the dependency of the working class and now college educated white collar workers on the jobs provided by corporations in a rigged economy operated with Republican unregulated free market capitalism since Reagan. The rigged economy was supported by a corrupt political and legal system that failed to enforce criminal federal law especially the federal law against the insurrection that began on January 6, 2021, and continued into 2025 as planned by Project 2025.

Dependency on jobs provided by corporations has increased threat of jobs being eliminated by unregulated AI which could create an economic crash and cause a massive recession as described by experts including Reich and Krugman.

Paul Krugman has correctly argued that neither globalization nor skill-biased technological change (driven by the wide distribution and use of personal computers) are adequate explanations of the huge rise in income and wealth inequality that has taken place since 1980. The corrupt political legal and economic system created by Republicans and corporations since the 1970s caused the income and wealth inequality.

CAUSES OF CORE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND PROJECT 2029 SOLUTIONS

The causes of the core economic problems such as affordability and wealth inequality include the unfair rules and taxes in capitalism that privilege the use of money by the wealthy and corporations and create the dependency of the working class and college educated white collar workers on jobs and wages provided by profit optimizing corporations. Dependency on corporations creates other problems such being forced to buy food supplied at high prices in the rigged economy and being forced to rent expensive housing and pay for expensive energy supplied by fossil fuels that contributes to the destructive impact of global warming and climate change.

Transformational innovation that solves affordability such as affordability of healthcare with Medicare for All must be created by new progressive policies in the federal government that restructure the economy. A new generation of progressive Democrats must get elected in 2028. Progressive Democrats should run the federal government by implementing PROJECT 2029 to solve core economic problems. PROJECT 2029 adopts and restores many of the policies of Democratic President FDR who created solutions to core problems. Progressive Democrats must create new federal revenue from higher taxes on billionaires and corporations to (1) fund and direct federal government projects that help the working class by increasing the creation of new small businesses that are owned and operated by working class entrepreneurs, (2) fund federal government projects that direct and subcontract the construction of at least 15 million affordable housing units to be built over several years in new factories as modular housing for affordable solar energy powered residential single family housing on land purchased by the federal government and as modular multiple family housing units and apartment units, (3) fund federal government projects that subsidize mortgages and rents for at least 15 million working class households to make home ownership and rents affordable, (4) fund federal government projects to direct and subcontract construction of modular hydroponic/aquaponic food production units that can be supplied on a half-acre lot with solar powered residential single family housing so a working class family can operate a business that produces affordable food to feed their household and can be sold for income, (5) fund federal government projects to enable working class households to have a path to shared wealth in America with complete ownership of their own housing for which they will have totally paid off mortgages after ten years, (6) reduce the amount of water and land required in normal farming with millions of hydroponic/aquaponic food production units, and (7) move many people out of flood prone coastal areas including cities to mitigate the destructive impact of climate change cause by global warming.

In a new transformed economy created with PROJECT 2029, capitalism would be “Equality Capitalism” that works equally for the working class rather than working almost exclusively for wealthy investors, oligarchs, and business owners. The rules including government policies and laws create the current “Inequality Capitalism” that pays the wealthy as business owners or stockholders at Republican economic privileged rates and low taxes for the return on their invested money as capital and treats workers as dependent labor and a disposable expense on the P&L spreadsheet that deserves no fair compensation or security.

Wealth inequality stems from the unbalanced structure of the economy created in the industrial age that has expanded out of control in the digital information age since the 1970s to help large corporations and wealthy investors. Large companies significantly contribute to the U.S. GDP, accounting for over 65% of it. But new small businesses that were created with transformational digital innovation largely funded by wealthy venture capitalist such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Goggle (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) known as the Big Five have driven most growth in the stock market and created wealth. The Big Five have played a crucial role, creating huge financial growth, market impact, and political influence by becoming large businesses outpacing the impact of many small businesses especially businesses created by members of the working class. However, small businesses (firms with fewer than 249 employees) in America (about 34 million) are contributing about 43.5% of GDP and employ almost 50% of the American workforce which is 59 million people. Small businesses contributed 55% of the total net job creation from 2013 to 2023.

A new generation of progressive Democrats must get elected in 2028 by campaigning with clear descriptions of their committed solutions to core problems including affordability and wealth inequality. Progressive Democrats can correct the current, unfair impact of venture capital almost exclusively funded by the wealthy. The correction in PROJECT 2029 is operating the federal government to be a major venture capitalist in addition to the current role of the federal government to fund scientific R&D through multiple agencies such as NIH and the NSF and to fund national defense R&D through the Defense Department. The federal government has historically helped create huge economic growth and wealth by directing and funding R&D targeting the creation of scientific transformational innovations such as the Internet and many other scientific transformational innovations in healthcare that created millions of new jobs. The federal government also created jobs by directing funding other infrastructure projects that helped create large economic growth such as the Interstate Highway System.

Examples of scientific transformational innovations in PROJECT 2029 are affordable housing and energy from solar powered residential factory built modular units and affordable food from farming on half acre lots with hydroponic and aquaponic food production facilities. In addition, millions of new good paying manufacturing and construction jobs are created.

Solutions to core problems including wealth inequality implemented by the federal government with PROJECT 2029 will transfer sustainable $ trillions of wealth to millions of households in the working class.

As part of the solution to the rigged economy, affordability, jobs/wages, and wealth inequality, PROJECT 2029 enables the federal government to intervene in the economy with federal assistance that enables millions of people to take advance of capitalism by becoming owners of their own business and owners of their home with federal assistance and also optionally work in millions of new jobs created with PROJECT 2029. With the federal assistance provided in PROJECT 2029, members of the working class and new college educated workers would have an attractive option to not be dependent on insecure jobs as employees of unregulated free market profit seeking corporations which restrict their wages to unfair low levels. The option is created in PROJECT 2029 with jobs created in corporations under contract to the federal government to provide jobs with stable secure good wages. The federal government would own the new factories built under contract to corporations that would then operate the factories to build modular housing units and gain the profits.

Federal government solutions to core problems including regulation of AI will prevent the destruction of the working class and college educated workers by billionaire oligarchs and Republicans.