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Pie Chart Voting
If you vote for more puppy orphanages, you'll have fewer baby duck hospitals. | |
Nobody doubts that all the great things the government
does with our tax dollars are worth every cent, but it
would be nice to have some reality inserted into the
debate about which terrific government program we
should
raise taxes for.
Currently you might see a commercial saying: "AB-97.6
will
take wheelchairs away from poor people so that rich
people can melt them down to make croquet hoops."
Then
the pro AB-97.6 add says: "The opponents of this bill
leave
out that not passing it will cause over 1 million baby
kittens to be drowned." Thing is, both sides might be
right
but how it effects the budget and other great programs
that may have to be cut back is still vague.
So I propose dumbing it down for people like me who are
stupid enough to have ended up on the paying end of this
tax thing. (a taxpayer) The voting screen would be a pie
chart representing the current budget and where
the money goes presently. Around the perimeter are the
various bills. When you click on one, it's cost is inserted
into the pie chart showing what percentage of the
budget
it will take up and correspondingly shrink the other
programs that will have to suffer. You can click a
secondary button to have taxes increased for this bill, in
which case the whole pie grows and no other programs
shrink, but you can't get away with pretending that
programs that cost money don't effect the budget and/or
other programs. A number showing how much your tax
bill
will go up will appear as well when you go that route.
Your
specific tax info could be put in at the beginning so it
would calculate your share based on your tax filing status
and income.
So if you vote for the puppy orphanage you'd see the baby
duck hospital budget shrink. If you voted to fund both
along with any proposed squirrel day spas, muskrat rehab
centers or earthworm meditation temples, you'd get a
nice clear readout saying "Ok, you just raised your tax
bill
$5,000 a year."
voting for public utilities contract
voting_20for_20publ...tilities_20contract similar in that voters choose where money goes to, but restricted to public utilities contract [mofosyne, Oct 03 2014]
[link]
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All these great programs might be a wonderful
idea but an overview
of how they effect the budget and other great
programs might help keep
things in perspective. |
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I swear to god I was going to say that. |
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I think you could also add video "motivators" too.
So
if
you click on the "vote for defunding of puppy
hospitals" button it morphs into a puppy saying in
a cute cartoon voice "Why do you want to kill
meeee?!" then fades to a grave stone marked
"Poor cute puppy that never hurt anybody March
2011 to May 2011" Then it would give you another
chance by saying "Are you sure you want to do
this?" When you click "hell yes, more than ever"
the puppy pops up again yelling "Nooooooo!" as it
fades out. |
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Becareful not to rely on emotional appeal too much, or
people will get sick of it and voting for the "kill all puppies"
coalition. |
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Btw, this sounds a bit similar to my idea of "voting for public
utilities contract" (thought mine is more restricted in
scope). |
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Sounds great. How much of the budget goes into
supporting the app? |
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