Not Gonna Happen. This Time.
Nov. 10th, 2005 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arisbeFinancing The Gulf Coast Disaster In The Wake Of Katrina/Rita, While Eliminating Poverty, Without Raising Taxes Or The Deficit By One Dime!
The Katrina/Rita Wake-up Call:
A Seven Step Strategy for Turning Disaster Into A Twenty-First Century Model for Regional Rebirth
Seven Basic Steps for Implementing a Justice-Based Solution to the Katrina/Rita Disaster, and Eliminating Poverty, Without Raising Taxes Our National Debt By Even One Thin Dime!
1. Under the KatrinaRita Plan for Regional Rebirth, the President, with the support of the Governors of the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, would designate the counties and parishes in the regional disaster area to receive special treatment for recovery and rebuilding. A regional model of Capital Homesteading for every citizen, would be launched in the Katrina/Rita disaster zone. (For summary of concept, see http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm)
2. The President would seek Congressional authorization for the establishment of a for-profit, citizen-owned Regional Natural Resources Bank (RNRB) as the private sector vehicle for implementing the project. The RNRB would be a land planning and development corporation with a representative board elected by citizen-shareholders for approving, financing and maintaining infrastructure projects, approving construction contracts under competitive bidding, and marketing to attract feasible new investment to the disaster zone. (The RNRB is an expanded version of the Community Investment Corporation that was invented for building model communities, as described at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html)
3. Under the plan, the three states would enter into a regional compact to delegate their powers of eminent domain to the citizen-owned RNRB. Such a compact would enable the RNRB to acquire all government-owned land and natural resources in the tri-state disaster zone on behalf of all citizen-shareholders, purchase title to privately-owned land that must be redeveloped, and develop a 30-year plan for comprehensive reconstruction of the disaster area.
4. Consistent with the long-term RNRB plan for building ecologically sound and sustainable community life for area citizens, the RNRB would assess land rentals, auction licenses for the extraction of resources, and collect use and maintenance fees for regional infrastructure.
5. The Federal Reserve System would use its seldom-used discount powers under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to monetize through member banks low-cost (transaction fees and risk premiums only) loans for feasible projects of the RNRB. Feasibility would be determined by lenders and capital credit insurers and reinsurers, with environmental guidelines established by designated Federal and State oversight agencies. Loans would be collateralized by the land and other assets of the RNRB.
6. An independent private sector regional capital credit insurance corporation would be established to scrutinize the feasibility of Capital Homesteading loans, to charge risk premiums on the loans to cover the risk of default, and to serve as a substitute for conventional collateral to meet the needs of new zone businesses.
7. Congress would give the RNRB tax treatment similar to that received by leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) under the Internal Revenue Code, so that dividend payouts would be tax-deductible at the corporate level and taxable at the individual level. After servicing its bank loans and covering its own operating expenses, the RNRB would distribute dividends equally to each citizen-shareholder. Thus, property incomes would increase the purchasing power of all citizens, lifting the region’s poor from continuing dependency on government welfare or private charity.
Anticipated Outcomes.
1. By giving regional member banks access to its discount mechanism, the Fed would supply sufficient asset-backed credit for all capital and infrastructure projects. In the face of mounting Federal and State budget deficits, this step alone would take enormous pressure off Federal and state taxpayers and would be far less costly than any existing sources of accumulated savings. (See Harold Moulton, The Formation of Capital, Brookings Institution, 1935, and chapter VII of Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, a book published in 2004 by the Center for Economic and Social Justice, at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/capitalhomesteading.pdf
2. As long as they maintain their primary home in the zone, each citizen would become economically empowered by the privilege of receiving a personal lifetime, dividend-yielding, non-transferable voting share in the RNRB, a modern counterpart of Abraham Lincoln’s Homestead Act of 1862. This private property right in a community’s land, natural resources and infrastructure parallels the right of each citizen to “own” the public sector through personal access to the vote.
3. Government’s role would shift from ownership of land to establishing broad guidelines for citizen participation in ownership; recommending ecological safeguards in the rebuilding process; settling disputes not resolvable by voluntary mediation and arbitration; lifting institutional and financial barriers to equal ownership and job opportunities especially for the poor; and securing the lives, liberties and property of all citizens.
4. The availability of Capital Homestead stakes for all citizens and interest-free bank loans for private sector development should serve as a magnet for attracting diverse entrepreneurial ventures for sustaining a more ecologically sound area economy that can compete without special protections in the global marketplace.
Norman Kurland, Center for Economic and Social Justice
September 7, 2005
The Katrina/Rita Wake-up Call:
A Seven Step Strategy for Turning Disaster Into A Twenty-First Century Model for Regional Rebirth
Seven Basic Steps for Implementing a Justice-Based Solution to the Katrina/Rita Disaster, and Eliminating Poverty, Without Raising Taxes Our National Debt By Even One Thin Dime!
1. Under the KatrinaRita Plan for Regional Rebirth, the President, with the support of the Governors of the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, would designate the counties and parishes in the regional disaster area to receive special treatment for recovery and rebuilding. A regional model of Capital Homesteading for every citizen, would be launched in the Katrina/Rita disaster zone. (For summary of concept, see http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm)
2. The President would seek Congressional authorization for the establishment of a for-profit, citizen-owned Regional Natural Resources Bank (RNRB) as the private sector vehicle for implementing the project. The RNRB would be a land planning and development corporation with a representative board elected by citizen-shareholders for approving, financing and maintaining infrastructure projects, approving construction contracts under competitive bidding, and marketing to attract feasible new investment to the disaster zone. (The RNRB is an expanded version of the Community Investment Corporation that was invented for building model communities, as described at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html)
3. Under the plan, the three states would enter into a regional compact to delegate their powers of eminent domain to the citizen-owned RNRB. Such a compact would enable the RNRB to acquire all government-owned land and natural resources in the tri-state disaster zone on behalf of all citizen-shareholders, purchase title to privately-owned land that must be redeveloped, and develop a 30-year plan for comprehensive reconstruction of the disaster area.
4. Consistent with the long-term RNRB plan for building ecologically sound and sustainable community life for area citizens, the RNRB would assess land rentals, auction licenses for the extraction of resources, and collect use and maintenance fees for regional infrastructure.
5. The Federal Reserve System would use its seldom-used discount powers under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to monetize through member banks low-cost (transaction fees and risk premiums only) loans for feasible projects of the RNRB. Feasibility would be determined by lenders and capital credit insurers and reinsurers, with environmental guidelines established by designated Federal and State oversight agencies. Loans would be collateralized by the land and other assets of the RNRB.
6. An independent private sector regional capital credit insurance corporation would be established to scrutinize the feasibility of Capital Homesteading loans, to charge risk premiums on the loans to cover the risk of default, and to serve as a substitute for conventional collateral to meet the needs of new zone businesses.
7. Congress would give the RNRB tax treatment similar to that received by leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) under the Internal Revenue Code, so that dividend payouts would be tax-deductible at the corporate level and taxable at the individual level. After servicing its bank loans and covering its own operating expenses, the RNRB would distribute dividends equally to each citizen-shareholder. Thus, property incomes would increase the purchasing power of all citizens, lifting the region’s poor from continuing dependency on government welfare or private charity.
Anticipated Outcomes.
1. By giving regional member banks access to its discount mechanism, the Fed would supply sufficient asset-backed credit for all capital and infrastructure projects. In the face of mounting Federal and State budget deficits, this step alone would take enormous pressure off Federal and state taxpayers and would be far less costly than any existing sources of accumulated savings. (See Harold Moulton, The Formation of Capital, Brookings Institution, 1935, and chapter VII of Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, a book published in 2004 by the Center for Economic and Social Justice, at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/capitalhomesteading.pdf
2. As long as they maintain their primary home in the zone, each citizen would become economically empowered by the privilege of receiving a personal lifetime, dividend-yielding, non-transferable voting share in the RNRB, a modern counterpart of Abraham Lincoln’s Homestead Act of 1862. This private property right in a community’s land, natural resources and infrastructure parallels the right of each citizen to “own” the public sector through personal access to the vote.
3. Government’s role would shift from ownership of land to establishing broad guidelines for citizen participation in ownership; recommending ecological safeguards in the rebuilding process; settling disputes not resolvable by voluntary mediation and arbitration; lifting institutional and financial barriers to equal ownership and job opportunities especially for the poor; and securing the lives, liberties and property of all citizens.
4. The availability of Capital Homestead stakes for all citizens and interest-free bank loans for private sector development should serve as a magnet for attracting diverse entrepreneurial ventures for sustaining a more ecologically sound area economy that can compete without special protections in the global marketplace.
Norman Kurland, Center for Economic and Social Justice
September 7, 2005