Let tax payers to allocate, say 1% of their taxes as they want. This would not be enough to prevent our representatives from doing the business of the government, but would show, on a yearly basis how the people think their money should be spent.
In addition, I would like the results, with proper statistical categorization to be available so that we could see which groups, areas, etc. wanted to send the money in different ways.
If it worked out, then perhaps the percentage could be increased and the option, to reduce the amount money to the government could be added by permitting people to allocate some money to a charity.
Comments (2)
Instead of the first 1% of their taxes, it should be the first $100 or something, because %1 can be a hell of a lot of money in some cases. Also, it should be opt-in.
OptIn sounds good, though I guess I assumed that if a person did not allocate their portion, that would be effectively a not to an OptIn.
I doubt that setting the ammount to be $100 rather than 1% would be an Idea Killer, though on first thought I think I'd prefer 1% as it seems to me that it is more reasonable for the allocatable money to be in proportion to the money that the allocator pays to the government, and I do think that the ammount allocated should be more signifficant than $100 would make it. But this would be worked out, I assume, if the Idea did proceed further.
But either possibility would allow those who want to tell the goverment how the budget priorities should be set, so I'm still interested in knowing why the idea was considered bad by 1/3-d of the people who voted.