National Land Value Tax (LVT Petition)

This is a petition that law be written to enact a national land value tax on behalf of the poor, the environment and the preservation of our country as the great bastion and vanguard of liberty and light in the world, the inspiration for peace.

Potential pillars of justice and logic for the enactment of such a law are as follows:

Whereas the federal government of the United States of America, by virtue of its establishment and maintenance of peace and order by military protection and various other means not only secures all, but is responsible for the creation of at least 1% of the value of all privately owned land, taxing all private interests officially owning land at 1% of its value will be fair and non-confiscatory, and

Whereas the history and current condition of the United States and other nations, empires and societies previous and current, the most rigorously scientific adherence to the field of economics, the clearest and most obvious logic such as that taxation for the use of natural resource is preferable to taxation of the production of wealth and the consistent and great number of public statements and writings of America's founding fathers and a great many other of the most respected minds throughout history and today concur on and prove these points, and

Whereas such a tax will discourage land speculation and the subsequent but ultimately unproductive rise of rents, home prices and farmland prices, and whereas such increasing land prices do not add any goods or services or in any way add any real wealth to the economy, but merely add unnecessary costs to workers, investors, renters, home buyers, home owners and every creative part of our economy, and

Whereas the repeated drastic fluctuations in the growth and decline in the price of land throughout the history of our nation and the variant erratic subsequent results thereof, which repeatedly threaten the strength of our economy and the general well-being of our citizenry, such as by the foreclosures on the homes of our citizens by private banks, massive layoffs of workers by companies rightfully fearful about the future of the economy and a myriad of other forms of societal detriment are the direct result of the attempt, by landed interests, to maintain the profitability of land speculation despite these facts, and

Whereas, discouraging land speculation will curb unnecessary sprawl and the many and various economically and ecologically wasteful and destructive effects thereof, which are increasing to the growing detriment of society and the natural world that sustains our very existence, and

Whereas taxing people according to how productive their labor is or how wise their investments may be does not directly improve the quality of life for them or anyone else, and

Whereas the reduction of crime, poverty and homelessness that will result from such a tax shift will reduce the burdens of government generally and greatly promote communal harmony and good will, and

Whereas equalizing access to land, the ultimate source of life and the first necessity of labor in the production of wealth and whereas allowing individuals the most free and fullest possible access to the fruits of their own labor, both, help realize the first and fondest goals of America's establishment by Nature and by Constitution,

We, the undersigned, urge our United States Senate, to adopt law requiring each of the 50 states (and however appropriately, her provinces and protectorates) to collect land value tax of 1% of the total of privately owned land value therein as assessed by those already employed thereby and therewith (or appointees where necessary) and to forward that revenue to the federal government to offset the elimination of income tax for every individual or business making less than $1,000,000 per year, the excess revenue from which to be used to pay down, in the most expedient manner possible, our national debt, and to continue to do so in perpetuity until such time as it shall be deemed to be in the best interests of the greatest number of citizens to adjust the numeric parameters of this reform and, to then, do so accordingly.

To guarantee the security of the landed property of every individual, it should be attached to this law that no person shall be deprived of any part thereof and that it shall be the duty of local government under state supervision to secure this national revenue stream while addressing any grievance therewith for any and every individual having such without depriving any of them of any part of their land for the sake of compliance with this law.