When they are passing around tax dollars like they're party favors, you dont, at that point, screw you district or state out of money that someone is going to get anyway.
If the stimulus money only was paid by those who voted for it .. that seems fair to me as well.
Only if you were denied access to the police and Fire protection and roads that I pay for also!
You got to think these thing through!
I'll pay for the Fire, Police, roads, and defense .. shoot I'll even through in some army guys to watch your borders too.
That's the point - if everyone chips in their taxes then everyone should be able to feed at the federal trough. Regardless whether they thought they should be eating Fillet minoin (Stimulus dinner) or burger . The real point is that we don't have the money for fillet minion but DC has ordered that, and Baked Alaska and couple of bottles of champagne too. Bankers and Wall Street will be seated first - thank you
I think this checkoff plan was proposed quite while back! Would let you check off where you want "your" tax payment spent! It would not reduce the Size of your tax bill, just what they could spend "Your" money on! Needless to say, it went no where fast!
Neither did the flat tax rate of 13 or 15% they had talked about.
I actually really like that plan. It is a way to prevent these pork-laden bills from having any negative effects on the country. Of course, that is exactly why no politician will ever let it get passed (except maybe Arnold).
The other one is how do you fund new programs till after all the returns are in since you need to get them a check box, also just how detailed do you want it! A check box for every line item in every bill passed by congress is not going to fit in the average mailbox!
I've actually considered the practical aspects of that for quite some time. For one, as you said, snail mail really isn't feasible. I think the government should set up a web page that lists everything you can fund, and you divide up your pie however you see fit. This could be modified at any point, and it will apply on all new taxes collected from a person from the moment of the change on. It reduces the initial complexity without reducing the level of detail, enabling a person to fund down to individual line items if they so chose, or to just apply a percentage to an entire bill. There's lots more detail I could go in to, but that will wander rapidly off topic. Send me a private message if you are interested in discussing this more.
Your web page plan wouldn't work either.
The list would be so long anything at the end of it would likely get screwed.
Not to mention, the list would be so complicated, most ppeople would probably punch out and say do whatever.
Maybe a simple option. Something like
"I authorize the expenditure of my tax dollars outside the boarders of the United States of America ( ) Yes ( ) No."
And
"I authorize my tax dollars to be spent on social programs ( ) Yes ( ) No"
Yours claim that it wouldn't work is simply untrue. You are envisioning a massive list of things, which is not my vision at all. Also, Google pretty much proves there is a way to handle massive amounts of uncategorized things.
There certainly isn't anything wrong with the generic claims, like you talk about (lamparty can tell you I took that into account in some private messages we exchanged), but then having a listing of all bills, letting people chose to fund an entire bill, or even drill all the way down to individual line items is certainly feasible. As I also told lamparty (in private message), such an endeavor would be optional, as anyone who didn't chose to take part in it would have things remain exactly as they are.
Of course any elected official with an ounce of sense is going to accept the federal stimulus money, if only to prevent a total collapse of the local economy.
The problem is with taking it, bragging to your district about all the wonderful effects it is having on local economy, then walking around with tea bags stapled to your hat to protest excessive taxation because of the stimulus.(meanwhile there hasn't been a significant increase in the rate of taxation for about 15 years, if I remember correctly).
These politicians want to have their cake and eat it too, brag about how great it is having it and eating it, then protest the price of cake.
The cake thing for rulers can back fire .. ask Marie Antoinette.
Interesting point. Marie would never have said such an off the cuff remark if they had media consultants back then to guide politicians (and their wives) through the reactions of their words to focus groups.
Maude_Lynne
Well, it's gonna be spent somewhere, right? Sheesh, the fuckers (left and right) should stand by their convictions.