Itemized budget

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

With the US government shutdown and all the hoopla about the deficit I've been thinking on a solution that should be possible to implement if enough people ask for it.

It has become clear that the parties can't agree on anything, nor compromise, and frankly why would they? There should be a way to acknowledge the differences when about half of the country thinks one way and the other half in an opposite way. What I would propose -and hope a tea partier should be able to accept- is that the funding of different things on the federal budget is based on a form that would be filled at tax time. Such form would split the costs of the federal government in a pie and each tax payer would have a checkbox list in which (s)he would select which part of the pie (s)he wants his/her tax dollars to go.

For example*:

Item	%	Select
Social Security	25%	[ ]
Medicare/Medicaid	23%	[ ]
Military Spending*	28%	[ ]
Regulatory Agencies	8%	[ ]
Homeland Security	9%	[ ]
Education	12%	[ ]
Parks/Reserves etc	0.2%	[ ]
Science Investment	0.5%	[ ]

*the numbers in the graph are just an example
**excluding pensions

That would be a completely democratic way to fund the government and one in which those who think that we need more F-22s and less FAA can select Military Spending and not Regulatory agencies, and those who want the opposite would fund accordingly. The size of each item would then be more proportional to the wishes of the populations and not the ones of the intermediaries, in this case, the congress critters pushing one way or another.

Do you thing a R-Winger would see this as an acceptable approach?

[Aggie]

Good idea, in principle. There are quite a few things that folks take for granted that might not receive funding, though, and some unpopular but ?necessary? things may get under-funded.  The downside would be the disgusting amount of money that would be wasted by special interest groups in marketing for their area of funding.

Demographics make it interesting; Medicare/Medicaid might get proper funding with the glut of boomers getting older and presumably sicker, for example. 

BTW, where's the checkbox for bread and circuses?

[Swatopluk]

One big problem: This would in my opinion end like the textbook example of the foul pie-dividing compromise
Person A: We should cut the pie in half and you get as much as I get
Person B: No, I should get everything and you should get nothing
Person C('neutral'): Why don't you two meet in the middle. Person A gets 1/4 of the pie and Person B gets 3/4
btw, Person C will likely demand a share of the pie for finding that 'reasonable' compromise. It will come mainly out of Person A's partition.

Reasonable voters would try a fair distribution of the tax money (results would reasonably vary) but the fanatics would set most items on 0% and shift everything into just a few. Given the general distribution of fanaticism the total result would shift huge amounts from social to military spending and from the lower to the upper classes.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The idea is to keep the current level of expenditure if everything is marked or nothing is marked. If you mark only a few items those receive the funds in the same proportion they do now, that is:

Item	%	mark
1.	20%	[   ]
2.	30%	[X]
3.	10%	[X]
4.	5%	[   ]
5.	2%	[X]
6.	33%	[   ]

In that example each item has its current level of expenditure. Three items are marked in the form which based on the previous proportions account for 42% of the previous expenditure, the remaining 58% is to be distributed to the three but in the same proportions so for that filer the new proportions are:

Item	%	Becomes
2.	30%	71.5%
3.	10%	23.8%
5.	2%	4.7%

All other items for that filer receive $0 in that round.

Chances are that a number of people will be lazy enough not to fill the form leaving the percentages intact, and the interested ones will be checking the items they desire or not. The advantage of the system is that changes in budget from year to year are cushioned by the percentage they received before, but with time the priorities of the population will have a higher budget. If the system is sophisticated enough you could ask for a more detailed form in which the departments itemize their expenditures and the interested people could say, I want more money for soldiers salaries but not for new airplanes & ships.

In the end the idea is that money is spent according to the direct wishes of the population and not the vested interests of the legislators.

[pieces o nine]

In a 'perfect' setting, a person's vote would result in a literal change to his or her own world, and this would be made clear ahead of time.

Thus:  an economic  vote to seriously diminish -- if not eliminate altogether -- allocations for science research would proportionately invalidate that person's access to any medical care, as well as any entertainment, transportation, or work technology resulting from scientific research for the affected fiscal period. No exceptions.

An economic vote to diminish or eliminate allocations for infrastructure would proportionately restrict his or her access to streets, highways, public transportation, public buildings, etc. during the affected fiscal period. No exceptions.

An economic vote to diminish or eliminate allocation for public service workers would proportionately restrict his or her access to police, fire, the courts, emergency personnel, public education, public sanitation, postal service, or access to plowed roads in the winter during the affected fiscal period. No exceptions.

An economic vote against education would block the person's access to libraries, perhaps the internet -- anything requiring reading (or its equivalent). It would be great if they would be restricted to autoomated dialing and/or self-checkouts at businesses, service industries, and emergency services to prevent interaction with a (potentially) educated person for the affected fiscal period. No exceptions.

An economic vote for endless capital for military spending would inactivate his or her ability to make any purchases deemed 'non-essential' in wartime for the affected fiscal period. No exceptions.



Do my suggestions seem untaddy?  

[Griffin NoName]

^^ P09 - yes, yes, yes -

An economic vote for endless capital for military spending would inactivate his or her ability to make any purchases deemed 'non-essential' in wartime for the affected fiscal period. No exceptions.

but define wartime - having just heard the Palin "squirmish" speech !!

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

In general terms and if you wanted to be absolutely fair, that would be the way to go, but there are a few problems with that approach, imagine someone not funding roads and bridges, and basically having now to pay a toll to use them, nor only is difficult to implement but it doesn't limit the budget of the item in question. It's open for debate if those not funding it would find it cheaper to do so, and so on. The other side is that we already fund things we may not use but can use them when we need them, ie: the farmer that lives far from an interstate highway, the single/retired person who doesn't have children in school, the people who never flies, etc, etc. They may not receive a direct benefit from the program but should be benefited by the existence of a program in indirect ways. As for the justification of the military, that is a discussion in itself.

The point of the exercise is to make sure that the size of a particular program is directly related to the will of the population and not the will of easy to buy influence politicians.