Ave, Sandum Citizens!
The Sôgmô, in establishing how donation taxes and product earnings will be divided, has created several categories of subsidies and savings within the Bureau of the Treasury. Of these, six categories of subsidies and two categories of savings accounts have been created, as well as accounts for workers’ pay, productive maintenance, and cooperative investment and reinvestment. The six categories of subsidies include affairs of daily life, such as: food, healthcare, home ownership, travel, vestment and “reserved” subsidies. The two categories of savings include national and emergency savings accounts.
Concerning Donation Taxes, a voluntary arrangement where citizens donate money to the State of Sandus on the Solstices and Equinoxes via the census, the Office of the Sôgmô has released the above formula. For each US dollar donated, a quarter will go towards cooperatives and how the cooperative system can be expanded in the future; this investment will require further division at a later time. 20% will go towards Food subsidies, an allowance which will be given to Sandum citizens in order to subsidise food costs each week. 15% will go to Healthcare subsidies, intended to alleviate pressure from co-payments and non-prescription medical drugs as well as some prescription medical drugs. 10% will go to Home Ownership subisides, a monthly allowance which shall go to citizens to alleviate concerns over mortgages and rent costs, as well as for university students who pay for housing. A dime of each $1USD donated shall go towards travel subsidies, intended for those who use public transport and who feel pressure at gas pumps when refuelling their automobiles. A dime will also go towards Vestment subsidies, an allowance use to under-write the cost of clothing and other necessities; this percentage may be changed in the future to 5% of each dollar in order that 5% may go to other “reserved” subsidies. Finally, the last dime of each dollar donated will be split between National and Emergency Savings, the former for national projects and infrastructure and the latter for emergencies.
When economic cooperatives begin to produce products and trade them, the above information shall be used by the Bureau of the Treasury to determine how much money of each $1USD earned shall go where. The first 27.5% of each dollar will go back to cooperatives; 15% for “maintenance” — which is, maintenance of facilities and purchasing of future resources required to continue production — and 12.5% for reinvestment back into the cooperative. The remainder, altogether, can be considered workers’ pay, as all subsidies are aimed towards workers within the State of Sandus, pursuant to the Founding Law’s Article on the Sandum Sovereign People being an alliance of workers, farmers, and intellectuals and the illegality of parasitism in Sandus. However, 15% will go towards workers’ salaries whilst the remainder of that 77.5% will go towards subsidies. Food, Healthcare, and Home Ownership subsidies each shall receive 10% of each dollar earned. Travel and Vestment subsidies shall both receive 6.25% each. The “reserved” or other subsidies category shall receive 5% of each dollar earned, as well as 5% for both National and Emergency Savings.
Although the Office of the Sôgmô has determined how the State and the Bureau of the Treasury shall save, it has not yet determined where it shall save money and, most importantly, how it will spend the money saved for subsidies and savings. Will subsidies cover, for example, whole co-payments up to a certain amount? Will subsidies cover a percentage of a grocery store bill up to a certain amount? Or will citizens receive a certain absolute allowance per week or per month, depending on the subsidy? Or will each subsidy vary, as some will work by percentages and others by absolutes? These are all concerns that the Office of the Sôgmô has yet to determine when it comes to the All-Citizens United Plan, a plan unveiled earlier this year in Aprilo MMXIII (April 2013) concerning Socialist economic growth in the State of Sandus. However, the very fact of this work shows Sandus’s commitment to the welfare of her citizens and to the Sandum Philosophy’s purpose of alleviating suffering. For the next Sancta week’s policy projection, the Office of the Sôgmô shall focus on these questions concerning the All-Citizen United Plan.
Let’s advance the Socialist Nation-State of Sandus via Realism
and the esteemed Philosophy!
— Sôgmô Sörgel
sandus.org 