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?)
While we are at it, can tax payers choose where their tax dollars should go? (Not practical, of course..but why not?)
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 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.
And most of it is buried in laws, subsidies and tax breaks that are not as obvious as running a social services program.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Democracy means majority rules ;)