Redistribution of wealth is a lot to ask. We’re going to have to earn it, says Blondie in a newly discovered alternate ending to “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

It is necessary to be worthy of this request by striving for and maintaining economic self-sufficiency and by being politically engaged in the great economic civil rights issue of our time, the redistribution of wealth.

Youth of America!

The Boomers have betrayed you.

It used to be, even here in Santa Cruz, not too-too long ago, you could work in a factory, pull down a mortgage and raise a family, on one salary. The given rationale for its slipping away and our ebbing into a two-tiered economy is globalization and automation. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rather, let’s advocate a society that values redistribution of wealth, including and among the wealthy.

One of the main purposes of the state is to protect the assets of the wealthy, which is done through our tax dollars. It’s one of the better justifications for heavy taxation at the top.

Tax the rich, heavily, like the Scandinavians have done for decades, with great success.

The Scandinavians (and others) have learned something. Granted, situations are different. Their bonds of ethnicity, climate and culture cannot be replicated, but we can learn from them. Their social programs don’t weaken entrepreneurialism, they strengthen it, as proven consistently and presently by highly successful volume global marketing of home-grown production and innovation.

The details for an American model are a work in progress complexity, and will be “gamed” whatever we do or don’t do, in accordance with the human condition. Every massive subsidy is gamed to some degree, Medicare, farm subsidies, corporate bailouts and so on. That should not deter us from proposing a culture that values strongly sharing its bounty among the less fortunate than themselves, efficiently, effectively and transparently, and importantly, shared responsibility among the able, and providing righteously for the tired and the poor, and those that cannot be held to personal accountability.

Indeed, we, the people, the 99%, will  – earn it, by consent of the governed, in our time. This is going to happen. In our lifetimes this can happen. I am committed to this goal.

Leadership. Empowering. Inspiring. This is our time.

Bob Lamonica for Supervisor 2014. FPPC# 1361998.