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.

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.

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.

How many times will we have to bail out Wall Street?

American households have to balance their budgets, so should our legislators.