When cities, towns or businesses incorporate, the individuals that make up these corporations do not relinquish their individual right to Equal Protection of the laws, whether these laws are enumerated, implied, or inherent.

70 different private corporations have received more than $1 billion each from the federal government; when government finances one group of people, it now has an obligation—per the Spending and General Welfare Clauses of the Constitution—to provide similar (or “equal”) protection for other groups of people similarly affected.

Distressed communities need Equal Protection the same as any other distressed corporation. While saving a failing company may be a waste of taxpayer money—if the product is no longer ‘profitable’ (or sustainable)—saving people is never a waste of money, because people can perform labor, and life cannot exist without labor.

Labor, to promote the General Welfare, is something that will never lose its value. For communities to be sustainable, they must collectively own all the means of existence that comprise their ‘General Welfare,’ and when they do, they will also own their Liberty. This is the very least any government—founded on principles of Natural Law—owes to its people.

The Details

1. Federal grant money—equal to $6,000 per person per year for four years—would be placed inside a Community Bank; the money would then be loaned to build essential infrastructure within the community (education facilities, local vertical and regenerative agriculture, green energy, clean transportation and construction, net zero housing, fiber optic communication, preventive health care, water / waste management, etc.).
2. Loans are designed to be paid back through the bank, as residents use these essential services. When this money comes back into the bank, it is dispersed equally within each community member’s personal account, as a share in the success of the community. The goal is to generate a circular economy within the community by employing everyone to both produce and consume these services.
3. If the grant used to kickstart the community is terminated after four years, but the businesses continue to thrive and pay back the initial investment, by the end of the loan period, each resident would accumulate approximately $41,000 in dividends. If the money coming in is reused to fund other projects, the return on investment would grow even larger. If the community is allowed to forgo federal taxation altogether, and instead place 10% of their earnings each year into the Community bank, the four-year grant would prove enough to generate a circular economy and fund itself in perpetuity.

The goal would be to fashion sustainable communities that can take care of themselves, using the people who already reside there. If the grass is made green enough, people will put down roots, and these communities will grow strong. The possibility of inflation or profit-seeking would be eliminated, as everyone would now work for the corporate entity that is the community itself, and thus be paid a specific amount; only the incorporated community would be allowed to profit.

The fact that the community also happens to be the people themselves echoes the original intention of the U.S. Constitution, which listed We the People as the sole proprietors; the wording of this original corporate charter clearly establishes that each citizen is an equal shareholder in the success or failure of this enterprise (calling us ‘stakeholders’ only implies that we are obliged—through a lifetime of labor—to keep this ‘corporation’ running, but clearly does not guarantee everyone a fair ‘share’ of the rewards).

Through a ‘closed loop’ labor generated circular form of currency, the price of goods and services would more accurately reflect the sum of the labor needed to produce and distribute them; only the cost of raw materials plus the 4% interest needed to pay back the initial community bank loan would be added to the total. The immediate drop in the cost of living would allow people to spend their money freely into the economy without going into debt, meanwhile knowing that some of their spending would come back to them through bank dividends, to reflect their dual role as consumer and laborer.

Money is meant to be spent, not hoarded; there is no real value stored within money. Labor is the only source of value creation, meaning that the value is stored within each person, and to promote the General Welfare, the role of economics (and government) is to unleash the potential value within each person. Money represents the amount of labor the people collectively produce together toward some shared purpose, and through the proposed system, spending—instead of creating more debt—would generate automatic dividends, which should nudge people toward wanting to spend, and thus automatically generate sustainable employment.

For the cost federal government has spent to bail out the top ten private corporations ($75 billion) it could fully fund 5 Congressional districts—well over 3 million Americans—for 4 years, and if the process is perfected, the government would never need to fund these communities again.

List of Distressed Counties by State

Top 25 Districts Outside the Equal Protection of Federal Government

Please consider also contacting your elected Senators to advocate for distressed districts in your state. Here are the top 25 districts that most need the same Protection granted to private incorporations of people.

Sources For Funding a Natural Law Beta Test

1. Corporate Subsidies top $100 billion a year; the top ten corporations alone have received nearly $75 billion in taxpayer money; 70 different companies have received more than $1 billion each.
   1. The beta test looks to incorporate an entire community around a public bank. The grant money would go into the bank, where it would rebuild the community and create jobs that render essential services; as the community pays for these services, payments would go back into the bank. The test is whether the community can flourish when they retain sole ownership of their means of existence, rather than a myriad of private entities.
2. Federal Government handed out $700 billion in bailouts for the Wall Street 2007-2008 financial crisis. Evidence shows this bailout money was spent on individual bonuses and was used as seed money to buy up several hundred thousand of the foreclosures The Fed and Wall Street helped initiate.
   1. The test would be rendered in the poorest communities, to help ‘bail out’ this group of Americans who do not lose their individual rights to Equal Protection simply by being in this group; the Spending Clause would best be served by either A) choosing one community in each state to promote the General Welfare, or B) choosing the most impoverished communities to provide Equal Protection. In either case, communities would have to vote to be part of the pilot program; Liberty means that people are allowed to own—as well as take ownership of—their choices.
3. The Federal Reserve has created debt money (“monetizing the debt”)—through quantitative easing—equal to nearly $9 trillion. The money has been used by private banks who do not equally protect American citizens. Meanwhile, 10 million individuals and families lost their homes (and 9 million people lost their jobs) between 2006 and 2014, raising the number living in poverty to 46.5 million. The U.S. National Deficit consequently rose from $9 trillion in 2007 to $31.8 trillion currently.
   1. If the federal government does not want to expend real (taxed labor) money to fund this project, it could repurpose some of the $9 trillion it already created, most of which sits in banks leaking value and further taxing the American laborer (through ever-increasing interest rates on the National Debt).