Community Restaurants, Cultural Clothing, and Groceries
For example, we can define a cooked meal that uses 95% of its ingredients [by weight] sourced within the same state/province as pertaining to regional culture. We can also call this meal affordable if it’s priced at 0.0125% of the national median annual income, and contains a particular nutritional value.
If a restaurant exclusively serving meals that meet these requirements was then given a license, which allowed it to offer its products without VAT, and an exemption on a building tax portion of the ULT, there would be a powerful incentive for a network of affordable, cultural food proprietors to form. The same can be applied to clothing, another Basic Essential with a cultural component. Combined with efficient use of land and superior infrastructure (as a result of the ULT), subsidized labor (from the NIS), and financial backing for both their own businesses and those providing their raw materials (through Sectoral Banks), the License Benefit would drive down prices for Basic Essentials, maximizing consumer purchasing power. As stated in the ULT section, a building tax component of the ULT would vary from 0 to 0.5% depending on the percentage of the space comprised of Basic Essentials (including affordable housing).The New Physiocrats’ platform does endorse these Benefit Licenses for restaurants and clothing shops, which meet requirements for affordability, regional cultural significance, and locally sourced production. This would be the same with grocery stores which meet which sell strictly Basic Essentials, and meet these same requirements. The key to the success in this program — as always — would be the precondition of transparency. There must be a public registry of the details of how each business is meeting these requirements, and the license must be on display to the public. The Effort to Support Purchasing Power must be able to have a forced election for its leadership if the public petitions to do so.