We erred. In good times we allowed social spending, and especially the taxes on the wealthy to remain low. We did this for social peace. Why go after more money from the wealthy, no matter how lightly taxes they are, if we can do well with what we have. Now that times are bad these agreements, especially along with further reductions as insisted on by economists and politicians who are apologists for the wealthy, will crush the lower income portion of our nation.

Worse, these policies will not end our economic problems. They will only make them worse. The problems are not due to the actions of those who are being asked to bear greater burdens. The problems are due to the actions of the very wealthy, and politicians, ourselves included, who went along with what the very wealthy wanted.

Our most basic problem is paying down the large debts that the wealthy and the government have run up. Cutting government spending in this economic situation WILL REDUCE economic activity and, thus, our ability to pay our debts. The economic activity of our country is the result of all of the spending throughout our country. When times are hard and people have too much debt they cut back spending. But the bottom 80% of the earners are unable to cut much. Those who can make big cuts in their spending are the very wealthy, and they do make these cuts. That is a large part of why the economy drops.

Why do the wealthy stop spending? Because they made a mess of the economy. Created, with the help of the banks and the government, a large run up in property prices, took loans and built retirement villas on the coasts, which villas cannot now be sold for a price that will pay the loan, etc. etc. They kept the profits when the bubble was expanding. Now they want your social benefits to pay for the costs when the bubble has collapsed.

So we will raise taxes on the highest earners. This will start with including all income in the payments for social benefits. That now includes only the base salary. Now bonuses and all other income will be taxed at the same rate as basic income. This will enable us to maintain benefits to the unemployed during these hard times and that will keep times from becoming harder. We will also phase out all exemptions and double the rate for all incomes over one million euros/year.

In addition we will impose a 1% tax on the gross earnings of all corporations doing business in Spain in return for the privilege of enjoying the benefits of being a corporation and we will impose a transaction fee of 0.1% on all financial transactions, with an exemption for the first 100,000 Euros/year. Etc. Etc.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."