Put money from selling underground resources and public land into a permanent fund that can't be spent all at once
In short
- The government puts money from selling oil, minerals, and public land into a fund instead of spending it all in that year's budget.
- The fund's principal stays untouched, and each year only the growth left after subtracting rising prices can be spent.
- Spending on long-lasting things like schools and levees is an exception if an independent review approves it.
- Changing these rules takes a large majority vote in two legislatures, with an election held in between.
- The principal can be borrowed only in a major disaster, and a plan to pay it back is decided at the same time.
If this comes true
In a town where the copper mine ran dry thirty years ago, a high school student who has never seen the mine learns welding in a training building paid for by profits from a fund built on copper sales.
Perhaps
While money is being sent into the fund, a mother in a village with no well might still walk to a faraway river for water this year again.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
The plan covers income from common property that is gone for good once it is given up. This includes fees for digging up oil, natural gas, coal, and metals, special taxes on that digging, fees for using old groundwater that rain does not refill, and profits from selling land and forests owned by the nation or local governments. In the accounts, this money is treated not as "income" but as "property that has changed form." It stays out of the regular budget and goes into a permanent fund created by law. An institution independent of the government runs the fund, the law sets its investment policy, and it regularly publishes where it invests, how it performs, what it costs, and how much its staff are paid. Each year, the amount moved into the budget can be no more than the expected long-term real return, which is the return after subtracting rising prices. Once moved, the legislature decides how to use it as usual. There are two exceptions. One is money put into long-lasting public assets such as schools, hospitals, water and sewer systems, and levees. An independent review body checks how long each asset will last and how it will be maintained, and only when it finds that the asset will pass on to the next generation in a different form is the money counted as having gone into the fund. The other is when the legislature declares an emergency because of a major disaster or a severe recession. Then the principal can be borrowed temporarily, but the deadline and method of repayment must be decided in the same vote. To change the rules of this system, each of two legislatures, with an election between them, must approve by more than the usual majority. How much to dig, and whether to dig at all, is decided separately from this system.
BenefitsEven generations born after the digging ends keep receiving their share
When only the growth is spent and the principal is left alone, the benefits keep arriving the same way every year even after the resources run out. A child born a hundred years from now receives the fruits of the property in the same proportion as people alive today, so the unfairness of one generation, simply by being born first, eating up the whole inheritance becomes smaller. In years when resource prices rise, the income goes into the fund, and in years when prices fall, the amount moved into the budget does not change much. This also reduces the swings of spending too much in good years and cutting schools and hospitals in bad ones. A country made rich by its resources can more easily avoid turning to debt the moment they run out. Also, because income goes into a public fund instead of through the regular budget, there is less room for resource money to vanish into a few people's pockets. Since changing the rules takes two approvals with an election in between, it becomes hard for one government to raid the fund to win popularity. The job of protecting future people's share is carried by the system, not by the self-restraint of whoever happens to be in office.
DrawbacksPeople in need today have less money they can use today
This system weighs most heavily on countries and regions that have resources but are poor. When wells, clinics, and school meals for children are lacking right now, leaving the sale money asleep in financial markets and spending only the growth bit by bit amounts to telling people suffering before our eyes to "wait for the sake of later generations." The objection that giving today's children education and nutrition is the best gift to later generations has real force. Even if schools and similar things are made exceptions, fights over where to draw the line may continue, and the exception may be used as a loophole. For a country carrying debt, holding a low-yielding fund while paying high interest can also be a loss on paper. If the fund grows large, it becomes a form of power itself, and it raises new problems: corruption in the institution that runs it, dependence on foreign markets, and political pressure over where to invest. A rule that is hard to change can also be too stiff to move flexibly in a crisis no one expected. Anyone who chooses this proposal accepts a decision to put off helping someone who could be saved now for the sake of someone not yet born.
Learn the background
Underground oil and minerals, groundwater built up over a long time, and land owned by the nation were not made by the present generation. They are property received from earlier generations that later generations are supposed to share too. Yet in many societies, the money from selling them is used up in the same year, like wages or subsidies. What remains after the resources run out is the hole in the ground, spending that swelled during the rich years, and a town that has lost its jobs. The people who suffer are those born after the resources run out, and they did not cast a single vote in the decision. The reason this is not solved is not a lack of wisdom. The idea of saving the money from sales is well known, but in the years when resource prices rise and income grows, calls for tax cuts and subsidies get stronger, and politicians who answer them find it easier to win the next election. Even in countries that created a fund, if it can be drawn down by an ordinary majority vote, it gets spent bit by bit in each hard year and ends up empty before anyone notices. What stands in the way is how decisions are made. In a place where only the present generation decides, protecting later generations' share from the present generation's wallet cannot be left to yearly judgment. It needs a system that is hard to change.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-28a) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes