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The Budget

 Give everyone an idea of where their taxes go...
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(Will go would have been better I supose since this would be for people still in school.)

Many people decide that everything would be better if they paid less taxes and then claim that the goverment should do something about X in the next sentance. Political parties often claim that you will get a better deal with them as they will cut taxes and improve public services.

The idea is to give children/teenagers a good idea of how much is paid in taxes, and how much is needed for each of the services they (or others) currently recieve. They would also know what they would have to pay for themselves later if taxes were cut. It wouldn't be trying to push a high tax policy on people, just allow them to make informed choices later when they get to vote.

—RobertKidney, Nov 12 2003

East Sussex County Council Annual Accounts (Requires Acrobat Reader) http://www.eastsuss...k/budget/Budget.pdf
Baked where I work. [DrBob, Oct 04 2004]

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       sp: many people --> republicans
—phundug, Nov 12 2003
   

       I have always wanted a line item break-down of every item on the City budget.
—DrCurry, Nov 12 2003
   

       It's no use. People wouldn't understand the budget anyway. Meals On Wheels? Who needs that program, what good does it do ME? I wanna buy a big screen TV!
—phundug, Nov 12 2003
   

       I was thinking about [Curry's] line item budget plan. It is only a matter of time. As communication becomes faster, democracy will become more participatory - for good or bad. Politicos talk about cutting waste - the real way to do that is to lay your cards on the table via the internet, and set up a moderator who can explain why each line needs to be the way it is.
—bungston, Nov 12 2003
   

       But I'm in government office! I NEED my $276.00 stapler, $60.49 reams of paper, and $1,249.21 urinal cakes! How do you expect us to work without them?
—Overpanic, Nov 12 2003
   

       Surely it's all on public record as it is? (There is a bureaucratic delay, of course.) So it's left up to the teachers to implement your idea. Or have I misunderstood?
—Detly, Nov 12 2003
   

       I remeber a nice newspaper article my high school economics teacher shared with our class that had a nice detailed breakdown, complete with pie charts, of the current US budget.
—Worldgineer, Nov 12 2003
   

       Yes [Detly]. The idea is to have the teachers impart knowledge of taxes and the budget (in a somewhat simplified form) to the students. There might also be a little on other countries budgets, past and present, chosen for interest and to provide a contrast. Care would be taken to avoid bias.
—RobertKidney, Nov 13 2003
   

       No doubt the public would complain about the amount being spent by the "budget communication department" and your plan would be foiled.
—dobtabulous, Nov 14 2003
   

       [DrBob], it looks like thats just a budget on a pretty pdf file. For the idea to be baked it would have to be tought in classes.   

       [reensure], this would be a compulsary short course of maybe 3 hours so that everyone understands instead of just macroeconomics studets. (The time could be taken away from religious education, general studies or any other program of that sort. )   

       [dobtabulous] this would hardly be an expensive project. The people who currently design the curiculum would write a sylabus for the course and the people who write textbooks would produce some leaflets or something (perhapse like [DrBob]'s council's pdf).
—RobertKidney, Nov 14 2003
   

       A wonderful idea, the transparency would result in public outcry. I also think people should not be allowed to prepay taxes or have them deducted from their paychecks. Paying a lump sum at the end of the year would result in public outcry. (refund! indeed!)
—ato_de, Nov 14 2003
   

       I'll say it again: The cost would be pretty small. Most schools already teach some kind of general studies or RE course. This would just take a few lessons away from it.   

       The course would be geared towards the age group it was being taught to. It wouldn't go into too much detail (big categories like health, education etc. with a bit of detail about each on the photocopied handouts or whatever). It wouldn't be trying to make economists out of everybody.
—RobertKidney, Nov 14 2003
   


 

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