Aside from getting Wild Turkey to sponsor us...

the Centrist Party needs to have a way to deal with the problem of the budget deficit and the national debt.  So, I'm about to make....

A Modest Proposal

The Centrist Party proposes a Constitutional Amendment to pass a wealth tax.  This will be an emergency measure that will create the authority to tax wealth by removing the requirement that taxes be apportioned among the separate states, and will be an emergency measure that will expire upon the total repayment of the public debt.  Any time in the future during which the Congress spends money resulting in a new public debt, this Amendment will take effect, automatically triggering the wealth tax.

This Amendment also imposes a "balanced budget" approach to future budgets and government spending and any bill that would involve deficit spending will require a 60% majority in both House and Senate.

The wealth tax will be imposed as follows:

Net worth of $1 million and below - no tax
Net worth of $1,000,001 to $25,000,000 - a wealth tax of 2% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.
Net worth of $25,000,001 to $50,000,000 - a wealth tax of 3% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.
Net worth of $50,000,001 to $100,000,000 - a wealth tax of 4% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.
Net worth of $100,000,001 and above - a wealth tax of 5% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.

Note:  Net worth includes any and all cash, investments and property anywhere in the world, with the exception of IRAs, 401(k)s and any other tax-deferred retirement account.

The wealth tax must be paid in cash.  Stocks, bonds and other investments cannot be tendered to the government to avoid capital gains taxation. 

Funds generated from the wealth tax can be used only to pay down the public debt.  They cannot be used to fund any other goverment program. 

This is only a first step, other changes to spending and taxation have to be made, but it's a good first step.  Example:  Bill Gates currently has a net worth of $66 billion, according to Forbes Magazine.  If the wealth tax were in effect this year, he would pay $3.3 billion in tax.  So he'd still have $62.7 billion in wealth.  The 2010 Forbes 400 list members had a total net worth of $1.37 trillion dollars.  The wealth tax would generate only $65 billion, but bear in mind that the top 1% of the U.S. own 40% of the total wealth.  The total wealth estimate for 2010 was around $55 trillion.  5% of 40% of that would mean that just the top 1% would generate $1.1 trillion in wealth tax in one year, right around the amount of the current budget deficit.  Throw in the 5% of wealth taken from the rest of thoe who have a net worth of more than a million excluding their retirement accounts, and we would make significant headway in retiring the public debt.