h a l f b a k e r yPoint of hors d'oevre
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Are't you tired of governments spending all your money
on
stuff, that you don't want it spent on ? or that you
ethically
don't think it should be spent on ?
Well here is the perfect solution.... Politicians do not
automatically get any of your taxes... they have to run
kickstarter campaigns
to fund the projects they want to
do.
It means individual people get to spend exactly on what
they think is worthy, and you know your dollar is never
spent on anything you disagree with.
You still have to spend your total yearly tax budget, but
you get to decide on what (mostly)
e.g. Politician A:- We need to go to war ... like it...
pledge your cash... don't agree.... pledge your cash to
space exploration instead...
It would put the power into the public's hands, and
politicians would have to do what they say and be
accountable.
Worthless ideas, would get a worthless amount of cash
allocated or fail to be funded.
There would need to be some kind of minimum
compulsory
amount that went into essential services and salaries
etc... or go more extreme, and jobs and salaries
funded
in the same way, so worthless politicians would also not
get paid.
Potential issues:- people don't put cash into boring but
essential funding projects, and go for the glitzy exciting
ones. Solution is having part of taxes work the old
way... or just letting things deteriorate, until they
realize oh wait, I really should have put cash into the
sewer repair fund.
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Annotation:
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Welcome to the Halfbakery, chthulhuJon. |
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Crowdfunding is a "relatively" new phenomenon,
but
I don't think that voting for how taxes are spent is
necessarily a new idea. You can rest assured every
single spending program has a constituency that
would vote for it, and the most problematic ones,
budget wise, anyway (e.g. Social Security,
Medicare)
, have the most support, hence they do not get
reformed. |
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I liked that, right up to the clause about a minimum compulsory limit for 'essential services'. Government would very quickly rack up a large list of items deemed 'essential services', to the point that there would be no surplus to allocate yourself. |
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This proposal suffers from the same problem that all
popular direct-vote tax initiatives do, the important
but obscure nooks and crannies of government that
don't get the limelight but are necessary to maintain
order and function in any society. Which I guess you
mentioned in your bottom paragraph, so carry on. |
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Hah, seems like no one like the minimum necessary
essential idea.... agreed too much potential for
hidden fees, maybe I should just nix that part,
and stick with the original concept, let people
decide where their money gets spent. |
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Well one unique aspect of this idea is that if it really does work like Kickstarter, if you don't get people to fund your project below some minimum level then you don't get any money at all. That might make the politicians set their budgets very carefully. If they ask for too much they get cut entirely. If they ask for too little, people will probably stop funding them once the goal is met. |
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Don't get me wrong. I certainly wouldn't want to see this implemented, but interesting half-baked idea. [+] |
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Maybe some unemployed journalists or university
student group could bother mirroring the current
budgetary items into kickstarter just to see what
would happen. Of course, the project data would
quickly become corrupted by its own popularity. |
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Maybe we divide government into two areas, the
necessary but unpopular bits in one, and the
Kickstarter-worthy bits in another. |
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