What are the pros and cons of elective government budget?(voters decide budget) | Hacker News Reader

What are the pros and cons of elective government budget?(voters decide budget)

10 pointselamje20 comments

Aside from the basic federal and state budget, such as costs of running government operations, would it be possible to allow voters to choose where their tax dollars go?

If so, what are the pros and cons compared to the current system in the US?

Concept: Once the essential government costs are budgeted, the remaining portion will be allocated by voters based on their share of tax contribution.

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> Concept: Once the essential government costs are budgeted, the remaining portion will be allocated by voters based on their share of tax contribution.

This would make the rich influence policy in yet another way, albeit a bit more openly than usual.

I think so - can you think of a system where the rich will not be more influential, without ripping them of their money outright?

A possible way would be to use some less-personal taxes to fund a "minimal government", I don't know about the US, but here we have federal sales taxes and securities taxes etc. that could be used to provide minimal government services. Then each year the government proposes a default budget allocation, i.e x% for department of whatever, and citizens could override this allocation if they wish to do so. I guess not everybody would overwrite it, they'd have to care a lot and inform themselves in detail about the intrinsics of the state. Those who wish to influence the budget could reallocate their individual tax contributions (income, wealth) to the department mix they'd like.

This would be self-regulating over the years, since if the government budgets according to past/anticipated budget allocation of the citizens (over/under fund specific departments). In a way that upsets people, it'd drive them to start doing their own reallocation. And if you'd end up at extreme allocation distributions i.e 95% unpopular department for those who follow the proposed allocation. Then maybe something is wrong with that department or the government, so the problem can be solved easily.

I really like the concept of voting where my tax dollars go. However I feel that it should be fixed to some amount of points that every person gets to allocate. The results of which must be public information with granularity down to the state level (summary statistics). It should only be to specific categories that the points can be allocated, with no write in. However, it may be nice to have like a write-in section for what is bothering them. This would lead to certain things coming more clearly into focus (like what troubles the common man, rather than what is bothering a company).

However there is almost never a surplus, there's always some amount of borrowing.

Just a thought: The votes might have to be weighted.

While we are at it, can tax payers choose where their tax dollars should go? (Not practical, of course..but why not?)

Why should any individual have any say in where their money goes?

Democracy means majority rules ;)

Exactly what I was getting at. Yes in practice hard to implement, but on a conceptual level it seems like in a democracy if one person is one vote, why can’t one person be one dollar(or many dollars) to fund the agencies they care about?

It seems where you are going is forcing a lot of Government to basically run GoFundMe campaigns for their non-essential programs. This might be a good thing and in a lot of cases the chief backers may be philanthropists, public and private trusts and interest groups.

Issues that you will come across are: - Deciding on what are essential services and the base level of the money they require

- Overfunding (everyone giving a favourite department too much money)

- Selling programs that are not sexy or exciting, hard to grasp and offer more indirect or secondary benefits (bike-shedding problem)

- Funding of base research into technology that could be 20-50 years away.

- Meeting international treaty funding obligations

- Preventative programs

and the big one: Funding (or not funding) the social safety net

If it is cheaper model as far as the bureaucratic cost, and helps with transparency as far as where your money goes, great!

Yeah, there are definitely issues determining what the essential government costs are, so let’s assume that system is in place and works well.

I agree about the underfunding and overfunding point. However, I can imagine a community like HN would maybe dump more money into research and tech related things, and would be happy doing it. There will be niche funding groups for various sexy and unsexy organizations, and the nice thing is, people will be happier to “give” the government some of their income, rather than watch it get wasted in a black box.

It’s definitely difficult to minimize rich having too much financial power in this system, but it could possibly use a system analogous to the bicameral legislature where big states are limited in power by every state getting the same number of senators.

Why is the dollar in my pocket more valuable than me? You should think about why you think that way.

In your system, End of the day, I’m well off by the standards of my community, and I live in a state that’s a banking center so we’ll have lots of political power.

So if you live in the south and get hit by hurricanes or when SFO gets leveled by an earthquake, I’d suggest you move because my money isn’t helping you.

I understand why you think that, but isn't it possible for other people to be compassionate? I think of all of the people that flock to cities to volunteer after a natural disaster. The most compassionate will be able to use their money to put it towards the things they care about. Additionally, if this was implemented at the local level, the excess tax pool, would be able to be accessed by all locals to directly help their area.

En masse, no. This is well established.

People tend to act compassionately in the face of acute events. Most of the work of government isn't that sexy. You may think that staffing fair procurement is an expensive waste of time, until you compassionately allocate a billion dollars to some disaster and discover that half of it was pilfered.

That is true. I guess it would require some more policy for granular things like that.

And yes, taxpayers have 100% control over where the excess funds they contributed go.

E.g. You make $1000 annually, and you pay 10% in federal income taxes. 5% of that goes to the basic federal budget (labor for all government agencies, and minimal operating costs). The remaining 5%, or $50, will be allocated to you. You can give $50 to one agency, or $1 to 50 agencies.

Essentially, the people choose the budget, and in theory something like the “Wall” either happens or it doesn’t, but citizens choose if they want it by funding it. Basically, put your money where your mouth is.

But then the rich would just choose to use their money in a way that only benefits them, while in reality, it might be better for the entire economy if for example more of the money goes to the unemployed.

Another issue that I see is that many people are very uninformed (or wrong) and if we let them choose directly where the money goes, it might be wasted. In the current system the way it should work (in my opinion) is that people vote based on the issues and values important to them and their elected then move the money based on researching and better understanding how to do it best (since that's the elected officials job, and they have time for that, unlike some of the population).

I think the reason these types of proposals come up is that the rich and powerful already control where the money goes in order to best benefit themselves.

And most of it is buried in laws, subsidies and tax breaks that are not as obvious as running a social services program.

I agree that many are uninformed, and money will get wasted. It seems like it will always be “wasted” depending on which side you are looking at it from. E.g. One might consider war a complete waste, and another considers it the best use of money.

I don’t agree that elected officials do a great job moving money to where voters want it. I think a viable solution is to have referendums(voting directly on an issue, rather than for a person to represent you) about public issues.

It’s an offensive concept. Democracy is about people, not capital.

Why bother? Let voters keep their surplus tax dollars if the government expenses are covered. You can always put them to use where it makes sense without extra bureaucracy (= costs money too).

I agree with you somewhat, but for something like the military, or healthcare, it would be pretty hard to organize as an individual, not to mention time consuming. The alternative has less friction.

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