Editing 75-03-B3 (section)

=== Transcript ===
Socialism makes promises only capitalism can keep. I'll be right back.

Yesterday, I told you of a plan used by some industrial corporations to make their employees stockholders part owners of the firm.

Today I want to tell you about another idea for giving every registered voter ownership in the business and industrial structure of America. Now this is not a half-baked utopian dream, it's a well-thought-out fully documented program called the national dividend plan which has the endorsement of well-known economists and political scientists.

Lionel D. Edie and company, a research subsidiary of one of the great financial institutions, [[wikipedia:Merrill_(company)|Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith]] did a feasibility study and endorsed it. Other endorsers include the [[wikipedia:American_Enterprise_Institute|American Enterprise Institute]], the [[wikipedia:United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce|U.S. Chamber of Commerce]] and the [[wikipedia:United_States_Junior_Chamber|U.S. Junior Chamber, the Jaycees]], the [[wikipedia:General_Federation_of_Women%27s_Clubs|General Federation of Women's Clubs]], the United States Savings and Loan League, and the [[wikipedia:National_Association_of_Manufacturers|National Association of Manufacturers]].

By the way, this plan is not offered as a substitute or alternative for the plan I discussed yesterday where my employees could acquire ownership in the companies they work for. We could actually have both, and let me repeat what I said yesterday, we won't be taking anything away from anybody in the process nor will those who benefit have to dig into their savings.

Right now the income tax on corporation profits is 48 percent. The national dividend plan calls for setting a ceiling of 50 percent. Investors would be assured that the corporation tax would never go above fifty percent. This should encourage more investment, since the plan would also end the present, unfair, double tax under which the corporation profits are taxed and then those distributed as dividends are taxed again as individual shareholders income. This would end. You'll see why in a minute.

The corporation tax would continue to be collected by government, however, instead of government spending it in our behalf we'd get to spend it ourselves.

Every citizen registered to vote in the previous federal election would receive a pro rata share of the total corporation tax collected by government. This means the registered voters of America would be sharing in roughly half the profits of American industry.

Checks would be sent on a quarterly basis and it's estimated that when the program is fully implemented the payments to each individual should be five hundred dollars or more each year, tax-free. An elderly couple on a pension or social security would be getting an additional thousand dollars a year as their share of an industrial prosperity. Registered eighteen-year-olds would have five hundred dollars a year to help them with their education and each of us would have a personal stake in helping our economy to expand and produce more. One little known statistic shows how we could all help to increase our annual dividend. A one tenth of one percent increase in output per man hour adds a billion dollars to the gross national product. A two or three percent increase would make us the world's greatest producer.

This basically is the plan tomorrow. I'll give you more details, including what we can do to make the national dividend plan a reality.

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.

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