As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, there is a problem with having government pay
for infrastructure . . . especially when we expect government to pay for
everything else! Of course, what is
really at issue is that “the government” doesn’t actually pay for
anything. Either it collects taxes or
borrows money . . . which it is supposed to repay by collecting taxes.
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| Well, maybe a little more modern. . . . |
The bottom
line? The taxpayer pays for everything,
not government. The only question is
whether the taxpayer is going is pay directly and own the infrastructure, or
whether the taxpayer is going to pay indirectly and the government will own the
infrastructure.
Thus, America and every other
country faces a conundrum: Everybody agrees that something needs to be done
about crumbling infrastructure, but nobody knows where the money will come from
to finance it.
One thing is increasingly
clear, government tax dollars will provide at
best a fraction of the estimated $1.5 trillion needed (and if government
actually does it, multiply that; did you ever hear of a government funded
project coming in under budget?). Adding
to that, and as part of the proposed federal budget, state and local public
programs will be facing decreased federal assistance. The alternative of private
investment would concentrate the ownership and control of roads, bridges,
sewage systems, and other basic infrastructure in Wall Street and a wealthy élite.
There is, however, an
alternative, a “Just Third Way” that goes beyond government or oligopolistic
ownership of America’s infrastructure, and its source of financing would come
through competitive local banks with access to the discount windows of the
twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks.
The for-profit “Citizens
Land Development Cooperative” (“CLDC”), also referred to as the for-profit
“Citizens Land Bank” (“CLB”) or “Community Investment Corporation” (“CIC”), is
one of several innovative credit financing vehicles aimed at realizing a free
enterprise vision for “re-people-izing” the future of the American economy and
government.
The CLDC is a keystone of a
new private sector strategy known as “Capital
Homesteading,” which recognizes the ownership of productive capital as a
new right of citizenship and supplemental source of personal income.
The CLDC is designed to finance
livable and inspiring “new communities” in which every worker and resident
would be afforded the right and the effective means to participate
personally in capital ownership accumulations, profits and local
decision-making. It functions just as the Rouse Corporation did in building
Columbia, Maryland or the Reston Corporation did in building Reston, Virginia —
but with a difference. The CLDC turns community residents into its principal
shareholders.
The CLDC offers a planning
framework for financing local infrastructure to increase land values and
attract new worker-owned industries and entrepreneurial opportunities. It can
also provide financing incentives for introducing and commercializing advanced
technologies that can be owned by local workers, create new private sector
jobs, and enhance the economic growth of the community within local, national
and global markets.
Outlined in the
diagrams you can see by following this link is a national demonstration
project for commercializing advanced technologies linked with broad-based
ownership participation in land development among area residents and workers.
The CLDC strategy can be implemented at the local, state, regional or national
level. Its financing would not depend on existing taxpayer dollars or the past
savings of the rich, but on the use of interest-free credit and asset-backed
money repaid with future profits to be generated by growing businesses and
future user fees.
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