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You disburse the taxes

Good idea or not?


  • Total voters
    15

WI Crippler

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Just a quick thought running through my head, haven't really had time to weigh it all but I thought I'd throw it out here for fun.

We pay taxes. We give a portion of our money, to the government, which the government then decides which way they see fit to spend it.

How about changing it, so that we decide (at tax time) the way we want to disburse the money we have given the government. For example. If, after I have filed my taxes, it shows I paid in a net of $5,000 to the federal government rather than waving goodbye to that money to be disbursed by the government to agencies/programs I do not fundamentally support, I could choose which programs I wanted to send that money to and disburse it as I see fit, amongst as many or few agencies as I wanted to.

It would require that the federal government list all of the areas it spends money. This would lay bare, the size of our government to all. For simplicities sake, lets just say that the overall agency would receive the monies. For example, if you wanted to disburse $2,000 to defense, it would go to the DoD. You could not elect to send it to the V-22 program exclusively. Or if you wanted to send a certain amount to the interstate program, you could send it there but not choose only an interstate in your area.

Replicate this on state and local levels, and then people can really have a voice in how their government is run. They support the programs they will use/benefit from and will not have to pay for programs they deem useless or unecessary. Considering the diversity of this country, everything should reasonably be funded by its own supporters. It would also remove the need and power of lobbyists in Washington, who try to redirect your dollars from elsewhere, in essence they would be constrained to arguing for specifics within a budget of what the tax provider has given that particular agency.

Poll options to follow shortly
 
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The best option I ever heard was that everyone would have to pay their taxes at the end of the year by sending a check to the govt. If people had to do that they would be much more likely to show concern about how the govt spends it and how their elected officials vote.
 
Let's jus cut your taxes and be don with it :mrgreen:
 
I would shudder to think of this program in action. Even assuming that the majority of taxpayers were willing to take the time and had the intelligence to make an informed payment, they would be acting blind as they only know where their own money is going. Of course most taxpayers aren't even halfway motivated or knowledgeable, making it even worse.
 
The best option I ever heard was that everyone would have to pay their taxes at the end of the year by sending a check to the govt. If people had to do that they would be much more likely to show concern about how the govt spends it and how their elected officials vote.

Just have them pay it monthly, like their rent. Absolutely no reason the people can't do this.

Oh, and make the filing deadline, where the annual paperwork is submitted and calculation of the full annual amount owed, November 1st, the day before the Congress things setting the taxes are voted for.

Now, as far as the OP goes, would never work. First off, the government TAKES my taxes, I don't give them a penny, and secondly, I find it easy to imagine that the Department of Defense would discover itself to be the proud parent of the National Endowment for the Arts, of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, and everything else that the Shell Game Artists want to protect.
 
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I would shudder to think of this program in action. Even assuming that the majority of taxpayers were willing to take the time and had the intelligence to make an informed payment, they would be acting blind as they only know where their own money is going. Of course most taxpayers aren't even halfway motivated or knowledgeable, making it even worse.

I would shudder to think of this program in action. Even assuming that the majority of Congressmen were willing to take the time and had the intelligence to make an informed vote, they would be acting blind as they only know where their own money is going. Of course most Congressmen aren't even halfway motivated or knowledgeable, making it even worse.

I mean for Christ's sake they don't even read what they vote on.
 
they would be acting blind as they only know where their own money is going.

Uh, no they know exactly where the money is going. Congress votes on a budget that allocates exactly how much money each program gets. This system would involve everyone diving the money as an individual. Only after everyone was done, would you have a clue where the money ended up. A congressman can say " i think we should increase defense spending by 5%" and add the money on the budget. An individual says "I think we should raise defense spending by 5%" then they have to second guess the entire country to decide how many money to spend. Some people will give less, some people will give more, and thus you have no idea how much to give to end up at a 5% increase.

Furthermore, congresscritters don't have to make up individual budgets on their own. They start with last years budgets, having hundreds of people working to make changes on it. Then once they have something, they simply have to vote on it with 3 options.

The system has a noble goal, but unless humanity turned into a hive-mind its completely unworkable.
 
Let me make a point. Try and take 5000 dollars and divide it up so that it proportionally matches today's budget. Tell us how much research you have to do.
 
Let me make a point. Try and take 5000 dollars and divide it up so that it proportionally matches today's budget. Tell us how much research you have to do.

But thats the point here. So many people pay taxes into things they don't want to support.

How many people would have hamstrung the DoD during the Iraq War? How many people would have hamstrung No Child Left Behind? Etc.... The point isn't to try and make it so everything remains the same, but that people direct their money into government programs they see as beneficial.

I understand that the amount of people don't know what's going on. Prehaps with a little perrogative towards "investment" into things they believe are worthwhile would spur some education on their part.

Its just a fun idea to toss around, I neither expect it to gain traction or be taken too seriously.
 
My point is that to alter the budget in any kind of rational fashion, you would have to know what it is to begin with. Nobody knows the breakdown of the budget off the top of their head. Increasing highway spending by 10% requires that you know how much highway spending is, and then know the value of the program(s) you want to cut spending for. Even getting that far requires effort even from hopeless political junkies like us. A normal taxpayer is hosed.
 
I dont see how it would ever work. Sure I think it would be nice if I could select which programs I wanted my tax money to goto directly but it isnt going to happen. To many retarded programs would get axed and the politicians wouldnt have any pet projects. They will never allow this to happen.
 
Wouldn't work. Some programs would be drastically overfunded (e.g. the military) while others would receive very little funding because they aren't sexy enough (e.g. upgrading our power grid). The average person doesn't have any understanding of how much or how little money is necessary to keep various programs running, and probably doesn't care.
 
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Wouldn't work. Some programs would be drastically overfunded (e.g. the military) while others would receive very little funding because they aren't sexy enough (e.g. upgrading our power grid). The average person doesn't have any understanding of how much or how little money is necessary to keep various programs running, and probably doesn't care.

Not to mention that 90%+ of the government spending is done on things I consider unnecessary or not the government job.
 
Just a quick thought running through my head, haven't really had time to weigh it all but I thought I'd throw it out here for fun.

We pay taxes. We give a portion of our money, to the government, which the government then decides which way they see fit to spend it.

How about changing it, so that we decide (at tax time) the way we want to disburse the money we have given the government. For example. If, after I have filed my taxes, it shows I paid in a net of $5,000 to the federal government rather than waving goodbye to that money to be disbursed by the government to agencies/programs I do not fundamentally support, I could choose which programs I wanted to send that money to and disburse it as I see fit, amongst as many or few agencies as I wanted to.

It would require that the federal government list all of the areas it spends money. This would lay bare, the size of our government to all. For simplicities sake, lets just say that the overall agency would receive the monies. For example, if you wanted to disburse $2,000 to defense, it would go to the DoD. You could not elect to send it to the V-22 program exclusively. Or if you wanted to send a certain amount to the interstate program, you could send it there but not choose only an interstate in your area.

Replicate this on state and local levels, and then people can really have a voice in how their government is run. They support the programs they will use/benefit from and will not have to pay for programs they deem useless or unecessary. Considering the diversity of this country, everything should reasonably be funded by its own supporters. It would also remove the need and power of lobbyists in Washington, who try to redirect your dollars from elsewhere, in essence they would be constrained to arguing for specifics within a budget of what the tax provider has given that particular agency.

Poll options to follow shortly

That would be so good but seems unworkable in the scale of things and people i do not think can judge and have knowledge of all the areas.

I'd love to know how much of my money goes to wars and military and stop my taxes going to it and instead i would fund enviromental protection programs and foreign aid (food, medicine etc.) which is more important
I'd happily support tax increases if i chose where my money went
 
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Wouldn't work. Some programs would be drastically overfunded (e.g. the military) while others would receive very little funding because they aren't sexy enough (e.g. upgrading our power grid). The average person doesn't have any understanding of how much or how little money is necessary to keep various programs running, and probably doesn't care.

And it wouldn't eliminate lobbyist firms. They would just move to lobbying individual taxpayers. Although....come to think of it, that might be better.
 
Wouldn't work. Some programs would be drastically overfunded (e.g. the military) while others would receive very little funding because they aren't sexy enough (e.g. upgrading our power grid). The average person doesn't have any understanding of how much or how little money is necessary to keep various programs running, and probably doesn't care.

That's the whole idea! Vote with your wallet. People would realize very quickly what they need the government to do- if their roads are in poor conditions, you'd have to be a fool to believe that people wouldn't alter their tax disbursal towards that next time it was due.

I think this idea gets so much flak because it would mean the elimination of many useless programs and departments, that as of now are only held aloft by lobbyists and a select minority.


rathi, you made some points about needing to know what the budget is in order to make changes about it- and that's true, using the current system. This idea is that people put money towards what they want- it doesn't matter is the DoD has tons of money already, you don't need to know what budget it currently has to determine how much importance it has to you.
 
I like the idea, although I would want to see an option to keep my tax dollars in my state.

The closer I get to stay to my tax dollars the better.

Maybe the options should be a choice between state-level spending (unemployment, AFDC, et cetera) and national-level spending (defense, interstate transportation).
 
No one seems to realize that this would encourage Congress to finance via non-traditional ways. Especially to finance operations it wants to hide from the public. If we went down to a line item funding method, we wouldn't have any black operations listed for obvious reasons. Iran-Contra affair anyone?
 
That's the whole idea! Vote with your wallet. People would realize very quickly what they need the government to do-

In the mean time, the highways fall apart.

Bootsavich said:
if their roads are in poor conditions, you'd have to be a fool to believe that people wouldn't alter their tax disbursal towards that next time it was due.

That is only true for programs that A) are large enough to catch the attention of the average taxpayer, B) are easily understood by the average taxpayer, and C) spend their money in a way where the taxpayer can gauge its effectiveness. There are plenty of necessary government programs that do not meet one or more of these criteria. And even for programs that DO meet all these criteria, the average taxpayer still won't pay attention until the problem gets REALLY bad. And even THEN...the taxpayers will just know that the program needs more money. They'll still have absolutely no idea how MUCH more.

Bootsavich said:
I think this idea gets so much flak because it would mean the elimination of many useless programs and departments, that as of now are only held aloft by lobbyists and a select minority.

I think the whole idea of a republican government is to elect people to represent us who (in theory) devote their careers to understanding public policy issues, or to elect people who at least surround themselves with smart people. The average taxpayer has no idea which programs need money, nor should he be expected to know this.
 
In the mean time, the highways fall apart.

This is a gross exaggeration. Highways have the feature of progressively decaying, they become worse bit by bit. First the ride gets louder as the surfacing gets old, then a pothole here, a pothole there... more and more over the years. Then people say, "Hey, that pothole spilled my coffee this morning!' And presto! More money for roads.

That is only true for programs that A) are large enough to catch the attention of the average taxpayer, B) are easily understood by the average taxpayer, and C) spend their money in a way where the taxpayer can gauge its effectiveness. There are plenty of necessary government programs that do not meet one or more of these criteria. And even for programs that DO meet all these criteria, the average taxpayer still won't pay attention until the problem gets REALLY bad. And even THEN...the taxpayers will just know that the program needs more money. They'll still have absolutely no idea how MUCH more.

Are there any programs in particular you had in mind?
I think the whole idea of a republican government is to elect people to represent us who (in theory) devote their careers to understanding public policy issues, or to elect people who at least surround themselves with smart people. The average taxpayer has no idea which programs need money, nor should he be expected to know this.


I'm sorry, but that is an incredibly undemocratic line of thought. Citizens have a civic duty to be aware of what their government is doing. I think the primary reason our country is going down the drain is because we allow sentiments like that to pervade society so that it is acceptable to be unaware of what our government does, and what the constitution specifies their role is.
 
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