during a nightline televised 'town hall meeting' just before the iraqi election, senator george allen (r) va reasserted a proposition he's been advocating since april, 2004 after being inspired by an ny times op-ed piece suggesting iraqi oil profits be divided amongst and distributed to every resident-citizen of iraq. although no specific plan has been developed, the idea would use the alaska permanent fund as a rough model. after using the original contract payment to improve the infrastructure and schools of the state, the people of alaska voted to invest a permanently retained portion of their oil revenues and annually disburse royalty income to all alaskan citizens. in 2002, every man, woman and child in alaska received a check for nearly $2000.00.
as head of the provisional coalition government, paul bremer publicly indicated his support for allen's proposal, as have several other republican senators. after all, this is the ownership administration. how better to demonstrate their commitment to that principle than helping the citizens of iraq to assert collective ownership of their nation's considerable oil resources? how better to acknowledge iraqis' ownership status than by providing a way for each to receive a share of revenue produced as a benefit of what they own?
anything that's good enough for iraq is surely good enough for us as well. america may not have as much oil as iraq and what there is may not be as easily accessible, but our land has plenty of other wealth, much of which has, so far, enriched relatively few of us directly. the agencies responsible for administrating all publicly owned land--and the forests, water and minerals on and under it--have typically been far too generous in their negotiations with the industries to which they offer leaseholds. at the same time, they've been far too lax in enforcing compliance. citizens ignore all but the most egregious malfeasance because we do not generally possess a sense of ownership. it's understandable. we wont really 'own' our resources until we receive a distribution of the income they produce.
a number of analysts have concluded our social security system's potential shortfalls can be prevented for a fraction of the cost of revamping the program. all that's required is relatvely modest recapitalization. the existing alaska method points to viable means, method and source of the needed funds.
in times past, one would expect this suggestion to be received with nothing less than total outrage by today's proponents of the oil ownership concept for iraq. obviously times change and so do attitudes. what was once abhored as collective nationalization is now 'ownership' --at least in iraq. given a choice between that type of ownership and the expensive and risky sort of phantom ownership we're being offered as a social security solution, i say we should choose the former.