When we talk about outright grants to individuals, whether described as basic income (“BI” – a.k.a. guaranteed income),  universal basic income (“UBI”) or any other form of grant, all are subject to the same limiting factor that threatens such efforts. That factor is the limits on the amount of funding that can be provided under the current worldwide financial paradigm. That is, whether the effort is backed by donor funds or a government program, there is always a limit on the quantity of money provided and/or its duration.

Every BI, UBI and other grant programs in history have either run out of money, had insufficient money to meet the full scope of the need, or is dependent on ongoing donor funds, which could stop at any time (see Basic Income History). When comparing government funded programs versus privately funded ones (donors), clearly governments have much deeper pockets and have both the capability (and one could argue the mandate) to provide all their citizens with some form of periodic (weekly, monthly, etc.) outright grant of money.  

Conventional Wisdom Likely Wrong

The problem is that the common assumption in nearly every government in the world is that such programs are paid for with tax money, received by the government. That is, the government has to raise taxes first to get the needed money, before it can spend it on any program.  And citizens abhor being taxed (especially the rich) and therefore there is a constant struggle between those who want to fund programs needed by the public, and those who resist spending government money, especially on programs to help the less fortunate in society. 

However, there is a growing movement in the world of economics called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that says conventional wisdom has it backwards – that is, sovereign governments, like the United States or Nigeria, can spend first and then tax back, if required. Should governments around the world embrace that concept, then funding limits for all manner of needed programs would disappear overnight, including grants programs that give every citizen a periodic stipend. Until then, there is only one other way that supporters are capable of providing the full and non-stop backing required for such grants.

The Solution

And that is where we the people issue our own vouchers, which we can do without limit and for as long we want. That is the core principal behind the Sustainable Communities Framework (SCF) which enables all of the programs contemplated under the section titled What Can Be Done with SCF? 

Under the SCF we have the ability to issue and manage as many different vouchers as we choose (we plan on a unique voucher for each state in Nigeria) and as much as we need. In each state we will issue the vouchers in two ways – grant them (give them away) as required to support some socially beneficial program, and sell it via our voucher bank our online marketplace, and with merchants and non-profit organizations everywhere.

We have determined that the best type of grant we can provide individuals is a Basic Food Grant.