Basic logic, some people say, proves that a community cannot tax its way out of poverty.

Taxing poor people does no good, they say, because in the end, the amount of money changing hands in the form of income tax, property tax or sales tax can’t pay for the social services necessary to sufficiently help the people. Taxing the rich only drives them away from the community, deepening the state of poverty. It simply can’t work.

Suspend skepticism and think progressively for a moment. Consider that we can end poverty in three easy steps: one standalone community policy, one new tax and good investments in the future.

The only way to tax an impoverished community into prosperity is to increase the volume of people paying taxes. The more people, the more tax revenue. To put it simply, communities could pay for more social services — namely schools, libraries, infrastructure, parks, etc. — if there were simply more people to pay the already-low taxes. Taxes stay low, benefits rise. So, the first step, naturally, brings people to the community.

In step one, the city council signs a binding legal contract with the town’s law enforcement, a memorandum of agreement ensuring that law enforcement officers won’t inquire about an immigrant’s legal status.

Schools across the country already can’t ask — and, therefore, can’t discriminate — about a student’s legal status, and a similar policy was implemented early in the decade in Los Angeles. It’s legal and essential for this process.

The policy would bring a large influx of immigrants, perhaps those who think it’s better to live unemployed and illegally in the U.S. than as wage slaves routinely abused by American corporations in need of cheap, unorganized labor. The community would become a safe one for all kinds of immigrant workers simply trying to make a living without being abused.

Any community in Alabama’s Black Belt region, which spans the state just south of Tuscaloosa down to north of Mobile, would benefit from such a policy.

With a higher number of residents, Black Belt communities wouldn’t have to raise taxes. Community treasuries would swell simply because of the increase in people.

The new immigrant workers would inevitably buy things — increasing demand — and therefore pay money in sales tax directly to the community in which they live. The increase in demand would serve as a shot in the arm to already-established community businesses and inhabitants. The immigrants could contribute to the community by doing the same agricultural work they came to the United States to do, especially in the agrarian Black Belt.

So, on to step two — creating the space for those jobs.

Land is of no shortage in the Black Belt. The problem, though, comes from how different entities use the land. In many cases, companies based out-of-state buy the land as an investment because of Alabama’s low property taxes.

These entities should be subject to an inactivity fee since they don’t directly contribute to the community in any way. They don’t contribute to the tax burden, mostly because they don’t pay the region’s sales taxes or income taxes.

A new, progressive tax on inactive big-business landowners would effectively solve the problem. As those entities sell the land they don’t use and relocate, the land would open back up to the new swell of incomers to the region, who will all inevitably contribute to the community’s revenue.

The immigrants, promised well-paying jobs for coming to the United States on a worker’s green card, would receive what they originally came for: working agrarian jobs for fair pay.

Finally, once the community receives the influx and ousts the detrimental inactive landowners, the community would conscientiously make good investments in the future. Improving the area’s schools, for example, could bring in more people along with all their capital.

Eventually, a snowball would start rolling that would, over time, pull the community out of poverty entirely.

So, could we get the political willpower to make this happen in Alabama? Probably not. Is it progressive? Yes, in more ways than one. But do new ideas hurt anyone? No.

What about inaction on very real problems like poverty, does that hurt anyone? Yes.

William J. Tucker is a freshman majoring in international relations. His column runs on Fridays.