Not charity
This is not a request for corporations to be nicer. It is a term sheet. If the public is taking the risk, the public gets the upside.
Public Money, Public Equity
If the public pays, the public should own.
America keeps socializing the risk and privatizing the upside. Public research becomes private patents. Public subsidies become private assets. Public contracts become private tollbooths. A fair-share economy starts with a simple rule: public investment should create public return.
Public riskResearch, subsidy, guarantee, bailout, procurement, tax credit.
Private upsidePatents, equity value, rents, dividends, buybacks, asset appreciation.
Public returnEquity stakes, royalties, price rights, public options, common dividends.
Not abstraction
Public equity can be written into grants, procurement, drug development, infrastructure finance, climate production, and emergency bailouts.
Not separate from affordability
Public ownership gives government leverage to lower prices, expand supply, and return wealth to the people who funded the work.
What Congress can do
- Equity warrants: public stake when grants or guarantees create private enterprise value.
- Public royalties: return on publicly funded patents and research breakthroughs.
- Price rights: affordability terms when public money makes production possible.
- Public options: direct competition where private firms turn public support into private tolls.
- Common dividend: return public wealth to households instead of letting it pool at the top.
Make this a pledge demand
We need candidates who can say this cleanly: public money should build public capacity and public wealth, not just private fortunes.
Read the candidate pledge