minimum wage Justin Dues minimum wage Justin Dues

$30 Living Wage by 2030

America can afford a living minimum wage. What’s been missing is a plan that raises pay without crushing small and mid-size businesses in the transition. Here’s a clear, workable path: tax extreme wealth and excess corporate profits to fund a short-term bridge for employers, and let the long-term payoff do the rest.

Short term: We raise the floor in steps and cover part of the gap for smaller employers with credits funded by taxes on extreme wealth and excess corporate profits.
Long term: Local businesses gain a larger, steadier customer base, lower churn, and fairer competition. Workers bring home enough to live—and to spend on Main Street.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Echoes of a Genocide & Alarms of a New One

No two histories are identical—and the Holocaust remains a singular crime. But atrocity prevention is about recognizing patterns early enough to stop the worst from happening. Looking at how Nazi Germany marginalized and brutalized Jews before full-scale extermination, and comparing that to credible warnings being raised today about Palestinians—especially in Gaza—helps clarify urgent risks, responsibilities, and remedies.

This piece draws on widely accepted early-warning frameworks for mass atrocities, then maps key parallels in rhetoric, law, spatial control, collective punishment, and international response. It also names crucial differences—because precision matters when stakes are this high.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

“Right to work” is a marketing triumph and a policy failure.

“Right to work” sounds like freedom. In practice, it’s a corporate playbook to defund unions, depress wages, and tilt power away from the people who make this country run. The slogan sells “choice”; the policy manufactures free riders—workers who benefit from union contracts while paying nothing for the representation that wins them. That is the point. It’s not about liberty; it’s about weakening the only large-scale counterweight ordinary workers have to corporate power.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Privatize the BOOM, Socialize the BU$T: How Wall Street’s Risks Keep Getting Dumped on Main Street

Wall Street didn’t get lucky. It got a system—crafted over decades—that privatizes booms and socializes busts. Left to its own devices, shareholder-first capitalism will drift toward corruption, consolidation, and a relentless hunt for cheaper labor. It’s not a glitch; it’s the incentive structure.

Americans are ready for something new: a rules-based, pro-worker, pro-competition economy where finance serves the real world, not the other way around. We know how to build it. We just have to stop paying for the fires and start changing the wiring.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Tax The Rich - Redeem the American Dream by Eliminating America’s Billionaire Class

The billionaire class has a choice: invest in the America that made their wealth possible or undermine democracy to preserve their power. So far, many have chosen the latter. But history shows that when ordinary people demand accountability and fairness, systemic change is possible.

If America is to honor its promise of government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” we must confront the corrosive influence of extreme wealth and build an economy — and a democracy — that works for everyone.

The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the American dream itself.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Hands Off: Why Privatizing Social Security and Medicaid Would Be a National Mistake

Public programs like Social Security and Medicaid aren’t just policy successes—they’re moral victories. They represent what America looks like when it takes care of its own.

Privatization is not modernization. It's a cynical attempt to convert public solidarity into private profit, one budget line at a time. If we allow that to happen, we won’t just lose these programs—we’ll lose the social contract that binds us together.

In the richest country in the world, no elder should live in poverty, and no child should go without healthcare. It’s time we stop apologizing for our public programs—and start fighting like hell to protect and expand them.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

From Walls to Welcome: A Humane, Tech-Driven Path to Citizenship for the American Melting Pot

The American Dream wasn’t built behind a wall. It was built by hands from all over the world—risking everything for a shot at freedom, fairness, and a better life.

Today’s immigration system is a moral failure and an economic blunder. But with the right mix of technology, transparency, and humanity, we can build a smarter, safer, and more just path forward.

Let’s be bold enough to say it clearly: It’s time for a system that tracks criminals, not families. That welcomes workers, not walls them out. That transforms undocumented people into documented taxpayers and future citizens.

That’s not just policy—it’s patriotism.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

You Are the Product: It’s Time for a Data Privacy Bill of Rights

The American Revolution was fought over unfair taxation and foreign control. Today, we face a new tyranny: corporate surveillance without consent, profit without accountability, and data extraction without limits.

A Digital Bill of Rights is not a luxury—it is a necessity. In the 21st century, privacy is power, and if we don’t reclaim it now, we risk surrendering our democracy, autonomy, and even our humanity to the cold logic of unchecked algorithms and profit-hungry platforms.

This isn’t just about tech. It’s about freedom. Let’s rise to defend it.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

It is time for Universal Healthcare: Why America Must Join the Rest of the Developed World in Dismantling Profit-Driven Healthcare

America’s obsession with privatized healthcare has produced a system that is morally indefensible and economically unsustainable. No one should have to choose between treatment and bankruptcy, or watch loved ones suffer because a corporation denied coverage.

If health is wealth—and it is—then universal care is the foundation for a truly prosperous nation. We have the resources, the models, and the public support. What we lack is the political courage.

It’s time for the United States to join the civilized world and treat healthcare not as a profit engine, but as a sacred right.

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Justin Dues Justin Dues

Tax Reform for the bottom 90%

The current system is unsustainable. It entrenches inequality, undermines democracy, and erodes the American Dream. Reforming the tax code is not about punishing success—it is about restoring balance, funding essential services, and ensuring that those who benefit most from our society—billionaires and big corporations—contribute their fair share.

Let’s tax wealth fairly, close the loopholes, and rebalance our economy so that opportunity and security are available to all—not just the privileged few.

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