If we are going to claim to value every life, and encourage every pregnant woman to bring every fetus to term, we need to acknowledge that every child born is the equal of every person already born. Interestingly, Alaska has been doing something important in this regard, for more than 20 years.
Every man, woman and child who lives in Alaska receives an annual income from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which represents dividends from the invested proceeds of Alaska oil revenue, and which, if properly managed, will continue to provide an annual income for every Alaska long after the oil has all been tapped. And Alaska's governor has had the fortitude to increase the share of the public in Alaska's oil revenue due to the high price of oil. (See another post on the subject from a few days ago.)
(And much of Alaska's state government spending comes from oil revenues, too.)
Our oil is not the only resource that needs to be treated this way. Urban land values can be hundreds of thousands of times the value of an acre of agricultural land. There is an acre in Manhattan said to be worth $400,000,000 to $1,100,000,000 -- as a teardown. If we were to tax that land value at, say, 5% per year, at $400,000,000 it would produce $20 million in income for we-the-people, relieving the need for $20 million in sales taxes, or $20 million in payroll taxes, or $20 million in income taxes. Talk about fiscal stimulus! Talk about a permanent tax holiday! Talk about getting the incentives right!
And urban land value is only one of a number of similar resources we should be tapping. Airport landing rights ... 8am at LaGuardia is not a trivial asset, and the USDOT has recently declared that they belong to us, not the airlines! The electromagnetic spectrum -- the airwaves which we all say belong to the American people -- have been gifted to the corporations, but all we need to do to reclaim them is require them to pay us rent. Take back the spectrum which is going to be sold to the highest bidder once and for all, and claim that economic value as our common treasure. Auction off 5-year leases to the highest bidder. And do it again 5 years from now. Same for geosynchronous orbits. Congestion fees in our congested cities. Tolls which reflect the real cost of wear and tear caused by the various vehicles which use them. Water rights, which increasingly belong to foreign corporations and sovereign funds. And of course the whole range of other natural resources beyond oil. See Mason Gaffney's paper, The Hidden Taxable Capacity of Land: Enough and to Spare.
We can make this a society in which there is room for the next child born, in which potential parents don't have to question whether they can afford another child, in which the decision whether or not to have a child can be made without fear of poverty. But our landed gentry, our top 1% who through their stock holdings and business equity holdings -- and the foreign-based owners of our land and our natural resources -- will have to be willing to give up the privilege we now accord them, of collecting the economic rent on all these things the classical economists called LAND as their own personal treasure, as if they had somehow created them or were more entitled than the rest of us.
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