What if tax payers could decide how their money is used?

[Colorado Rambler]

(Got timed out and was forced to reply in two posts):

NHartphotog wrote: I would love for income taxes to be based on HOW MUCH YOU SUPPORT WASHINGTON'S ACTIONS.

All these liberals who spew hate of Tea Party and Libertarian activists could pay A LOT MORE for the corrupt Big Government they love so much.

As for me, instead of the luxury SUV I send to Washington every year (while driving to work in a 13-year old beater with 130,000 miles), I wouldn't give it a penny.

hmmm... So, I suppose if you could get the rest of your state to go along with you, it would be the state of anarchy. Have fun back over in the Politics Forum.

hoffdano wrote: I cannot imagine a formula or process that could be used to make this work.
I can't either. (see my reply to Data1000 above)

The individual in the US is the ultimate narcissist. How do you handle funding for programs that take a very long time to implement and put in place?

My dedicated staff is hard at work getting the bugs out of my plan, including the problem of long term funding. I'll get back to you on that.

Do people who pay lots of taxes get a bigger say than those that don't? What about those that do not pay federal income taxes at all? Do they even have a say?

No. Everyone would have the same say. Otherwise, things would be no better than now with those in the upper few percentage points of income calling the shots for the rest of us. As for those who pay "no" federal income taxes - many of them actually do - especially now that the payroll tax is back at its former higher rate. That money goes to Congress to squander. too. Plus, everyone has to pay state AND federal taxes on stuff like gasoline. Everyone who works and has their paycheck raided by the government for whatever reason should get to vote on spending.

What about those that want the entire federal government to just spend less overall?

Those folks can come up with their own ideas and put them out there as an alternative to mine - but if you check my OP, you'll see that I'm trying to put government spending back in the hands of the states and take it away from the Feds.

[pvande55]

Yes a lot of long term projects would not get funded. But questionable weapons systems the military doesn't want would end, as only a few people in powerful districts benefit. Biggest losers would be those with powerful politicians. Remember how WV was a major beneficiary of government spending because Sen. Byrd could bring money there. But I think the founding fathers put representative government rather than democracy in place is they were afraid of mob rule.

[Ted Bear]

If the objective is to cut and/or focus Federal spending, I think we could go a long way towards accomplishing those objectives by:

1.) Term Limits.
2.) Government Funded Campaign Coffers
3.) Elimination of Lobbying

The primary focus of the people in Washington is to get as much for themselves personally as they can. Therefore, they look to spend as much of the taxpayers money as they possibly can and skim as much for themselves and their cronies as they possibly can.

If you break this system, which is what you are proposing by putting spending decisions back in the hands of the populous, you break the spiral of the unethical in Washington running the government and the country for their own enrichment.

Two terms and you are done: Breaks the gravy train. Eliminating lobbying: Congress is no longer beholden to special interests, who participate in the scam once their interests are funded by Congress, and Campaign Contributions: see lobbying.

Clearly we need a fresh approach to break the cycle of self aggrandizement on which Washington currently runs.

[markg91359]

The USA is a Republic, not a Democracy. In the strictest sense of the term this means that we elect representatives to make decisions about taxing and spending for us.

The plans suggested above are utterly hopeless and unworkable anyway. Many people have not a clue what their government really is doing with their money. Currently, the lion's share of the federal budget is going to pay for social security, medicare, medicaid, defense and interest on the national debt. Less than a third of the money we spend goes to pay for anything else.

I seriously wonder how you would handle something like this. Would voters vote individually on 86,000 line items that appear in the DOD budget? Would we break this down to 20 line items? What if I agree that the money we spend VA Hospitals is well spent, but I disagree with spending on more stealth bombers? What if I support the acquisition of more submarines by the navy, but believe we should reduce the number of surface ships? How about if I don't disagree with overall military spending, but I want less spent on projects involving civilian military contractors? How about the individual out there that feels opposite of what I do and wants to privatize more DOD functions?

Having the public vote individually on government expenditures would create a Mad House and large numbers of people wouldn't know or care particularly what they were voting for. National security interests would be a real problem because the public simply can't be told things like how many secret agents the government employs in different foreign countries and what that costs us. There may be no way to understand the value of these agents without knowing exactly who they are and what they do and this would grossly compromise national security.

Are you comfortable deciding whether the VA should acquire PET scanning machines in all its hospitals? Are you comfortable deciding what the expenditures for American embassies in foreign countries should be? What are your thoughts on salaries and benefits for government workers that represent dozens of agencies across 50 states, American territories, and those serving us abroad? Are you comfortable deciding how many meat inspectors we need to have in packing plants to protect our food safety?

You can love or hate Congress and I think right now plenty of us hate it because of the dysfunction going on in Washington. That's really why we are having a debate like this one at all. However, none of us should dispute the idea that the government we have is very sophisticated and involved in hundreds of functions we take for granted. We wouldn't realize it until those functions stopped.

We don't need a hare-brained idea like this one. What we need are better people in Congress who are more accountable to us.

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by Charles

Couple that idea with votes for taxes. The more you pay in taxes, the more votes you cast. You want more voting power? You pay more taxes.

Call me crazy, but that sounds VERY anti-American and un-Constitutional! So the rich get to make all the decisions, while the poor have fewer rights and less voting power? Or are you proposing everyone gets to decide for themselves how much to pay, and we issue "power" based on the percentage of total income they pay in taxes? The latter would be slightly more fair, but still pretty much goes against everything for which this country stands. Please rethink your ideas here, and imagine how our Founding Fathers would have viewed such a concept... I have a feeling they'd be rolling over in their graves if they could read your post.

Now to address the OP, I think people are (as a whole) too stupid and/or ignorant, too selfish, and too shortsighted to be trusted with these specific decisions. Yes, even me. Basically you'd end up with overly-funded roads, police, and fire, barely-funded education and defense, and other services that would be completely without funding. I'm no "big government freak," actually define myself as a Libertarian, but even I can acknowledge that certain taxes aren't fun to pay but still entirely necessary. Trying to think of a good example - maybe prisons, welfare, reproductive services, and stuff like that?

And as a public librarian, I do shudder to think of how many libraries would end up having to close their doors forever. Around here they really value libraries, and almost ALWAYS vote "yes" on our bonds; but there are other regions where they might think we're funded through other means, and/or don't understand the need for libraries in this day and age. So to summarize, no I don't think this is a great idea. We do need some kind of tax reform, but IMO this is not the answer.

[Tatooine]

I like this idea, although in reality it would be hard to implement. But instead of people choosing where to put their money, it might work to have the government say on the Tax Website: Okay, the budget for this year is $3 trillion, you owe $3,000 in taxes, choose where you want your money to go." But it's works in a first come, first served basis - people who pay their taxes late would see this message when they try to pay for an F-22: "We're sorry, but most budgetary items have been paid for. The only available option is $992,345 left to fund Congress's catering budget."

It wouldn't work on cutting down the budget, but at least people could feel good about pretending where their money goes. And people would pay their taxes on time...

Although, I would love it if we could decide how much we pay, and then the government has to deal with that budget for the following year.

And as a public librarian, I do shudder to think of how many libraries would end up having to close their doors forever. Around here they really value libraries, and almost ALWAYS vote "yes" on our bonds; but there are other regions where they might think we're funded through other means, and/or don't understand the need for libraries in this day and age. So to summarize, no I don't think this is a great idea. We do need some kind of tax reform, but IMO this is not the answer.

I think you're right. People who don't use libraries wouldn't think them relevant, and not realize just how good they are to the community as a whole. But I guess this would go for a lot of stuff of what the government does.