Elimination of Poverty

Monumental problems have I solved so far with but the most simple of solutions:
health care, Korean nuclear weapons, Alberta beef, and politician's pay. Now I'm turning the sights onto POVERTY.

I would define the absence of access to social justice as the definition of poverty. Therefore, poverty is eliminated by enabling access to social justice.

The most simple and expedient way of enabling access to social justice is to grant every Canadian citizen and landed immigrant an aggregated governmental debit card, aka the Citizen Card.

The Citizen Card would have five accounts and be paid into monthly by government:

The Citizen Card Subsidized Housing $400 / month National Childcare $ 50 / month Legal Aid Fund $ 50 / month Health Care $250 / month Educational Supplement $ 250 / month

Numeric values for example purposes only.


This is the assumption: that right from the month and year of birth (or landed immigrancy) every person, as a right of Citizenship, gets so much per month credited toward their Citizen Card. Citizen Card gets activated for use at age 16.

Subsidized Housing

By 20 years of age the housing portion of the card could have a maximum of $96,000. Subsidized Housing sums only be used toward housing/rent/utilities.

National Childcare

Most children have two parents who at worst will be able to supplement $100 per month PLUS a lump sum. Each parent could have accumulated, by age 25, a sum of $15,000 each to chip in toward child care. PLUS whatever grandparents wish to transfer. PLUS transfers from siblings.

Legal Aid Fund

Every individual should have fair and equal access to the legal system. This is not at all currently the case. Equal access to justice is an important tool in eliminating poverty. A 20 year old would, in theory, have access to $12,000 (exclusive of external transfers). The legal system could include a "social advocate" -- someone who knows the ins and outs of dealing with soulless bureaucracy and filling out forms.

Health Care

A 50 year old, me for instance, would potentially have access to $150,000 for medical or health or assisted-living options. If I make it to 75 years old before I need any degree of care then I'll have $225,000 to play with. That should buy me a hip. See Consumer-driven health care.

Educational Supplement

A 20 year-old citizen could have, in theory, $60,000. Parental and grandparent sums are potentially available by transfer for further education. This is essentially "free education" but with carefull consumer involvement. Just like daycare (and health care), all schools would depend upon attracting students for their revenue.

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That's it. Have fun mulling this highly malleable, essentially consumer-driven (non-socialist) publically-funded system of eliminating poverty. How about added rules like restricting expenditures to only Canadian-owned and operated supplies and services? (ie Canadian taxpayer money for Canadian businesses only).

Oh, yeah, cost of the program is revenue neutral (except for the one-time retroactive fluff-up of each card) except for the Legal Aid Fund which has no societal equivalent. This program largely replaces existing governmental expenditures.

Remember, reducing poverty is to decrease the duration of (mean) time spent within the "float" of being poor. [Previously blogged.]