Constitution of The Republic

ARTICLE II: Form of government

E) Money and Corporate Equity

  1. The Council shall have the power to impose taxes on sales, corporations and vice conducted for profit, estates of substantial size, the wages of inmates, and upon the extraordinarily rich, and in addition to this, a nominal tax of between .1% and 2%, to be set at the discretion of the Council, upon the earnings of all citizens and to appropriate the money collected in all above to pay debts, to make the payroll, to fund the budgets of appropriations made by other branches, to fund existing government projects authorized by law, to fund new projects, or to the people(in that order of priority) All taxes shall be reapproved and levied after approval on an annual basis. Voting in taxes shall be cumulative as described in chapter B section 18 (II.B18)
  2. Except in time of war, the total tax on any given item or on the income of any particular person may not exceed 30%, nor may any tax include income earned outside of the republic, exports from the republic excluded, nor may the tax on prisoner's wages be appropriated for any purpose except to the direct benefit of the prisoners.
  3. Local governments shall have the right to asses taxes on real property by a majority vote of the Citizen's Advisory board with the advice and consent of the local cabinet. This power shall only extend to localities which maintain an authoritative record of all real property transactions, ownerships, boundaries, and liens in their jurisdiction.
  4. Upon receipt of a 3% petition signed by persons who are subject to a tax (with the exception of the nominal tax and the tax on prisoner's wages) Parlaiment shall have the power to reconsider that tax, and, with a majority vote of the whole number, shall have the power to place the tax up for a referendum. Any change in taxation approved by referendum shall be binding on the Council for a period of five years or until an initiative is passed rescinding that order (whichever is less).
  5. The council shall set the bottom line figure of the total budget and minimum and maximum caps for each ministry (totaling not less than 1/4 of the bottom line for minimums and not more than four times the bottom line for maximums each year, with the two caps less than 50% apart in not more than 1/2 of the cases) by a 2/3 majority.
  6. The bottom line figure, minus the total of all minimums, shall then be divided by 300, and that number of shillings times the number of cumulative votes possessed by the member shall be assigned to each member, to be distributed among the existing ministries and categories however they please save that exactly the whole number of shillings at the disposal of any member must be used. Once all members have appropriated their funds at the general level the numbers plus the minimum cap shall be combined by addition, and that number used as the basis for that ministry or category unless a 2/3 majority of the members object.
  7. Once all shillings have been assigned a category, the other branches are dispatched their budgets for those categories which are appropriated by them, and the specific programs at each ministry or administration or within each category are then appropriated by cumulative vote as described in Chapter B, section 18 (II.B18), each item of appropriation shall be considered as a single issue.
  8. Any money given a ministry not directly appropriated by cumulative vote shall be available to the minister to whom it is appropriated to allocate within the ministry in any lawful manner, subject to the override power of the Council.
  9. No appropriation may be made contingent upon anything except the available funds of the government or the execution of existing legal duties without a majority vote of the whole Council and the advice and consent of 2/3 of Parlaiment.
  10. Parlaiment may address, by a 2/3 majority, the local distribution of funds appropriated to any program that is not equally distributed nationwide or automatically appropriated by law.
  11. Parlaiment shall have the authority to attach fees to pay for regulatory costs, provided that such fees be automatically appropriated in the law authorizing them, and that no fee be imposed except for services rendered.
  12. Parlaiment shall contract and manage all government debt, control the issuance of such debt, and shall decide which Council appropriations may be paid for with debt moneys; the Council shall reconsider by process of majority vote any use of direct monies for appropriation denied debt if any debt is needed to fill any of the appropriations at that level of priority or higher in that year.
  13. No member of Parlaiment, the Cabinet, or the Republic Council may hold any debt issued by the government; the government shall immediately repay the principal with reasonable interest for any such bond. Shares in partially government owned corporations which are held by members of the above shall be placed in blind trust until the end of the member's term.
  14. Parlaiment shall have the power to propose the contracting or creation of new corporate equity by the government to the Council, which shall have the power to approve or reject the creation or contracting of corporate equity in the name of the republic, and shall have the sole power to create corporations wholly owned by the government. The Council shall have a veto, overrideable by a 2/3 majority, on any change of bylaws of a government owned corporation made by Parlaiment.
  15. Parlaiment shall have the power to cast the shareholder votes of the government in any situation wherein the government owns equity in a corporation. The individual votes shall be translated directly into shareholder votes, with each member of Parlaiment receiving control of an equal number of shares.
  16. The government shall not favor its own corporations in matters of law, and shall allow competition between nationally owned and publicly held corporations. No equity in a corporation may be obtained by the government except by creation or purchase.
  17. Parlaiment shall have the sole power to make appropriations to the military; no provision may be made for the military or anything ancillary to it except by Parlaiment. Also, Parlaiment shall appropriate for emergency spending, to local governments and organizations, for the local direction of ministry monies, and such other items as may elsewhere be specified, and shall be issued a sum of money from which to make each set in each year at the discretion of the Council. Likewise, the Supreme Court shall appropriate the budget for the judiciary and other purposes issued by the Council, and the Board of Selectors shall have the power to provide for the payment of their staff and of jurors, committee members and witnesses within the budget approved by the Council.
  18. The Council shall have the power to affirm or deny by a separate majority vote any proposal of appropriation or taxation contained in a bill passed by consensus committee. Likewise, Parlaiment shall review any proposed contracting of debt, change in corporate matters, military, or local appropriation proposed in a bill by a consensus committee.
  19. Each ministry shall provide a complete account of its fiscal activities to the Council and Parlaiment 2 months after the end of the fiscal year.
  20. The government shall insure and have the power to insure that all those employed by the government and especially those compelled to service by its request are paid fairly in accordance with their role and station in this government, and competitively to the private sector. The government shall provide pensions, child and family care, insurance, reasonable leave for elected members to conduct campaigns, and such other forms of compensation it deems appropriate to all employees.
  21. Members of the Supreme Court shall be paid the same as members of the Council, and other members of the judiciary in a proportion to them to be fixed by law, with all judges of the same level receiving the same amount. The Prime Minister shall be paid a salary equal to that of a Council member plus one-third. Citizen members of consensus committees and criminal juries shall be paid the salary their ordinary occupation would entitle them to. Parlaiment shall control the payment of its own members from a budget equal to three times the total payment to the Council and the Supreme Court combined if their number is 100, or equal to the two if their number is 25.
  22. The salaries of elected officers and ministers may not be reduced during their term in office, nor may the salary of present members of the Council be increased during their term in office
  23. The Council shall provide for the minting of a common currency throughout the republic, the shilling, to be initially worth .07 of a Swiss Franc; there is to be no sub-unit of the shilling. The government shall maintain a gold reserve equal to at least 1/5 the value of all outstanding shillings, and mandate that no less reserve of deposits be kept by all banks insured by the Republic. No law may mandate payment in any medium other than the shilling or gold.
  24. The government shall maintain a majority share in a corporation to be created for the purposes of providing insurance of such type as the shareholders see fit at the lowest profitable cost to all citizens of the republic who apply. Likewise similar corporations shall be established, and a majority share maintained, for the provision of electricity and other utilities, though this shall not in any way prejudice the ability of the government to form corporations for any purpose not otherwise forbidden by this constitution.
Copyright 2000-2002 Jack Durst, Last modified 5/27/2002 12:05PDT