How Will the Citizen's Dividend Be Funded? In the past, guaranteed income plans proposed to get funding from tax revenue. Usually, that meant raising the income tax rates. That was foolish. You can't make an economy healthier by taking people's earnings way from them. The solution is to fund payments to citizens, not from money torn away from its producers, but by using revenue that was NOT produced in the free-market portion of the economy. Here's what we're talking about -- Monopolies! Government-granted privileges! Special breaks! Government activities! Those are the portion of the economy that is not currently operating within the free-market, and the revenue that comes from this portion of the economy is as much yours as anybody else's. So we each have an equally good claim to a share of that. Easy example -- suppose the federal government is going to allow private broadcasters access to a new set of airwaves (nowadays they call airwaves the "electromagnetic spectrum") that had been off limits before. Instead of giving away the airwave rights to a few big radio or TV station owners, leases for the airwave rights should be auctioned off and the revenue from the auction of leases should go to YOU and ME. Take a look at what the state of Alaska is doing -- oil-drilling companies operating on state-owned sites pay a royalty to the Alaska government, which then turns around and divides that among Alaska citizens! They don't do a perfect job of it, and the program needs a lot of expansion, but the basic idea is there, and has been working for years. This puts real money into the hands of Alaskans instead of a tiny group of speculators. back to the Citizens Dividend main page