25 Major Benefits of the Franklin Amendments

8 HARPS proposes a foundational rights framework, eight absolute rights and privileges, argued in Chapters 1 through 8, and the 11 Franklin Amendments, in Chapters 10 through 20, that give those rights binding legal force. The book addresses well over a hundred distinct provisions across those amendments. The twenty-five below are some of the issues most central to the book's argument: the ones that would most visibly change how the country is governed, how its economy distributes income and opportunity, and how the rights of an individual citizen are protected against the government and against concentrated private power, all while generating a surplus instead of the deficits the federal government continually runs.

Economic Security and Opportunity
1

Universal Basic Income

A monthly payment to every citizen, funded through the Office of Humanity Trust Fund and exempt from garnishment or creditor process.

Read The Office of Humanity Amendment (Chapter 10) →
2

Universal Healthcare

Medically necessary care, prescription drugs, dental care, and vision care guaranteed to every U.S. resident, with reimbursement anchored to Medicare rates and direct drug price negotiation.

Read The Office of Humanity Amendment (Chapter 10) →
3

Free Universal Education, Pre-K Through Professional Certification

AI-delivered instruction and tutoring at no cost, funded independently through a National Land Value Tax rather than general revenue.

Read The Office of Humanity Amendment (Chapter 10) →
4

A National Land Value Tax and Self-Funding Housing Construction Program

A tax on land value, not improvements, that funds a program building at-cost single-family homes with the states until the national housing shortage is certified relieved.

Read The Office of Humanity Amendment (Chapter 10) →
5

A 32-Hour Standard Workweek and Paid Family and Medical Leave

Mandatory overtime beyond thirty-two hours in a week, and progressive wage-replacement leave available to every worker regardless of employer size.

Read The Office of Humanity Amendment (Chapter 10) →
6

Equal Taxation of Investment Income and Wages

Ends preferential rates for capital gains, dividends, and carried interest, taxing income from money the same as income from work.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
7

Taxing Great Wealth at Death and Every Ten Years Thereafter

Ends the stepped-up-basis loophole and requires billionaires to mark publicly traded holdings to market on a ten-year cycle, closing the borrow-against-unrealized-gains strategy.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
Structural and Institutional Reform
8

The Office of Humanity as a Fourth Constitutional Branch

Removes the administration of healthcare, housing, income support, education, labor standards, and retirement security from ordinary political control by making it a coordinate branch of government.

Read The Office of Humanity Amendment (Chapter 10) →
9

An Independent Inspector General's Office

A constitutionally protected watchdog with real subpoena power, insulated from being defunded or dismantled by whoever holds power.

Read The Office of Inspector General Amendment (Chapter 11) →
10

An Independent Attorney General and FBI Director

Selected through a bipartisan commission rather than presidential appointment alone, with a wall against case-by-case political direction of federal prosecutions.

Read The Independent Attorney General Amendment (Chapter 12) →
11

Supreme Court Term Limits and an End to the Shadow Docket

Twelve-year terms for Associate Justices and a requirement that every emergency order receive a final, reasoned decision within the same Term.

Read The Supreme Court Reform Amendment (Chapter 13) →
12

A One-Term Presidency

Replaces the Twenty-Second Amendment with a single term, paired with an emergency-succession safeguard that removes the outgoing President's own Justice Department from certifying any crisis used to delay a transfer of power.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
13

A Constitutional Cap on the Federal Structural Deficit

A self-executing formula limiting the deficit as a share of GDP, with automatic enforcement if Congress exceeds it.

Read The Federal Debt and the Federal Budget Amendment (Chapter 20) →
14

National Referendum, Recall, and an End to Gerrymandering

Gives citizens a direct constitutional path to propose and pass federal law, recall federal officials, and requires congressional districts to be drawn without partisan manipulation.

Read The Voice of the People Amendment (Chapter 19) →
Civil Rights, Justice, and Public Safety
15

Elimination of Qualified and Absolute Immunity

Ends the legal doctrines that have shielded law enforcement officers and prosecutors from civil liability for misconduct, and gives local governments a right to investigate when a resident is harmed.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
16

Abolition of Capital Punishment

Ends the death penalty nationwide and commutes existing death sentences to life without parole.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
17

Decriminalization of Simple Drug Possession

Redirects enforcement resources toward treatment for personal-use possession of controlled substances.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
18

A Constitutional Right to Vote, With Real Penalties for Suppression

Extends voting rights to citizens who are incarcerated, on parole, or on probation, requires free voter identification, and imposes mandatory fines and prison time for officials who obstruct or intimidate voters.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
19

A National Firearm Licensing System and Extreme Risk Protection Orders

Background checks, safety training, mandatory secure storage, and a court process to temporarily remove firearms from a person shown to pose a danger, with full due process.

Read The Firearms Safety Amendment (Chapter 16) →
20

An Independent Food, Chemical, and Environmental Safety Agency

Requires proof of safety before a new food additive or industrial chemical reaches consumers, rather than proof of harm after the fact.

Read The Public Safety Amendment (Chapter 15) →
21

A Right of Citizenship and, in Extremity, Secession

Grounds the right to vote and full legal citizenship in the same document, and revives, carefully bounded, the Founders' own argument that a people subjected to sustained, systematic government abuse retains the right to separate from it.

Explored in the book's foundational rights argument, Chapters 1 through 8, not one of the 11 Franklin Amendments.
Money, Technology, and Corruption
22

The Federal Reserve Made the Sole Issuer of a Digital Dollar

Bars private companies from issuing dollar-pegged stablecoins and directs all reserve income the Federal Reserve earns on the digital dollar back to the U.S. Treasury rather than private shareholders.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →
23

Enforceable Data Privacy Rights

A consent requirement before any entity may collect or sell personal data, an overhaul of consumer credit reporting, and a warrant requirement for government access to communications and location data.

Read The Data Protection Amendment (Chapter 17) →
24

A Rights and Accountability Framework for Artificial Intelligence

An enumerated rights floor for how covered AI systems may be used, a ban on AI systems initiating contact with a person without a human deciding to do so, and mandatory transparency and human-oversight requirements.

Read The Artificial Intelligence Amendment (Chapter 18) →
25

A Sweeping Anti-Corruption Package

Bans congressional stock trading, prohibits family members of officials from profiting off government access, imposes revolving-door restrictions on lobbying after government service, requires financial disclosure, and structurally separates ownership of major media or technology platforms from unrelated commercial and government-contracting interests.

Read The Government Integrity Amendment (Chapter 14) →

Read the Full Text

Every one of these 25 benefits is drawn from the formal Article and Section language of the 11 Franklin Amendments, available in full on this site.

Read the Franklin Amendments