Should we be able to chose how are tax dollars are spent?

[°Leprechaun]

Would it be better if tax payers had some voice in how tax dollars are spent?
If I wanted all my money to go to NASA and none of it to military spending, for example,
should I have that choice? (or some other variation)
The program could be something chosen by the government, otherwise people could direct the money to something self serving like their religious congregation.
I know that many people object to how their tax dollars are spent. Why should I be forced, for example, to support a war that I find 100% immoral. Why should I be forced to support nuclear weapons when such support violates my conscience?
discuss

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Yes, it's called an election.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, it's called an election.

I was about to say exactly that.

[DC Al Fine]

Yes, it's called an election.

I was about to say exactly that.

This.

In terms of actually allowing citizens to decide where their tax dollars go, that would be a terrible idea. Even taking out the ideological aspect of it, there are tons of unsexy programs that are vital to government functioning well. How many people are going to allocate their tax dollars to transfers to local government, or whoever collects taxes?

[DavidB.]

Yes, it's called an election.

[bagelman]

Yes, it's called an election.

I don't think OP meant it like that. An election is where you pick the person who will decide how your tax dollars are spent, not where you directly vote for how the tax dollars are spent.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Yes, it's called an election.

[Leinad]

No, that would be disastrous. I get your point, and kind of agree with what's behind it, but it would mess up the whole system--I'd say dramatically lowering taxes and spending would be a better idea (no surprises there). And regarding the government doing things like immoral wars--I'd say the answer would be to go to war less.

Yes, it's called an election.

I don't think OP meant it like that. An election is where you pick the person who will decide how your tax dollars are spent, not where you directly vote for how the tax dollars are spent.

Sure, but I think Crabcake's implication is a "no" on the question. That the elected officials are better qualified to decide where the money goes than putting it to a popularity contest.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Perhaps I shouldn't be so facetious. I do understand the appeal of such a system, but is basically fraught with tricky problems:

- it puts decisions entirely in the hands of the rich. Poor people's taxes (sales tax and payroll tax) could not really be divvied up in this manner, the former being impossible, the latter being tied up in necessary spending. Therefore the more income and CG taxes an individual (and to its logical extreme, the more corporation tax a company pays) the more power they have. The large part of the revenue would become entirely dependent on the whims of the rich and not a social and universal source of restricting wealth.

- we already do posess more efficient ways to end abuse of taxpayer's money; through elections and lobbying. Perhaps scrawling "don't find war" on your tax return would feel nice, but it's fundamentally a symbolic gesture. Even though technically your money isn't directly going into the war, it subsidises social spending to allow the government to shunt an equivalent amount of money to the bad war. So you effectively still fund it (this sort of problem comes up again and again in this sort of earmarked revenue situation)

- true you could defund a war by a large mass of people mobilising to write 'no war' on their tax forms, but that would require such a mobilisation you might as well use existing methods to defund governments.

- I don't like tieing legislature's hands with random mandatory spends and the like. It's bad enough in the direct democracy sense (where California, for example, barely has any choices that haven't been tied by long-passed initiatives); but this sense seems like it would become a bureaucratic nightmare. It also becomes a hugely deep rabbit hole - what if you support War X but not War Y? What if you support the EPA's regulations on farms, but not on the Clean Power Plan? What if you support the Department of Energy's energy efficiency programs but not the nuclear weapons that consume most of its budget? It also is downright diabolical in a fiscal crisis to have all your spending tied up.

- finally, and I hope this doesn't sound elitist, but not many people (even people who pay large amounts of taxes) know very much about how government works to such a level they know what each individual department requires in funding. It remains likely that unsexy money hogs like say Pensions would become critically underfunded, while other departments become bloated with spare cash they have to burn through. (I suspect transport would become massively overinflated)

[dead0man]

Maybe we could direct a fraction of our taxes to specific things, but even that might not work out well.

[TNF]

'Our tax dollars' is so cute. It implies that the bulk of people have control over the system that forces them into wage slavery and then steals back part of what it allows them to keep (having already stolen the biggest part of it).

[Pragmatic Conservative]

While we should be able to decide the governments econmic policy through election, deciding where tax dollars go could create a situation causing one department gaining more money then another, this could cause difficulties if no one wanted to support a project in dire need of funds

[Goldwater]

Such a system seems impractical and unworkable.

[NeverAgain]

I would be fine with choosing how everyone's tax dollars are spent, but not everyone would be. That is why we have our democracy that fight over how we spend them.

[Intell]

I guess you could have a referendum on how your tax dollars are spent.

[ElectionsGuy]

Not on everything as it would be too complicated, but it could certainly work that there could be several ballot initiatives to choose whether or not to spend tax money in specific areas.

[Kingpoleon]

Perhaps, say, 10-25%. It solves the PP debate, at least.

[°Leprechaun]

I guess you could have a referendum on how your tax dollars are spent.

That does happen. You could also require a referendum before going to war. After WWII Congress has surrendered this Constitutional requirement to the imperial President. At the very least Congress, not the President should be initiating wars. The President should not be an advocate for war.
(edit: I need to be more careful with proofreading.. our tax dollars is what I should have said)

[Untergang des Abendlandes]

Yes, it's called an election.

You tell them bro.

[°Leprechaun]

Nobody has thought of the obvious yet. We can chose how our tax dollars are spent.
We get a vote on whether $1 goes the campaign fund. If only elections were totally financed this way. I vote "no" on this question because it unfairly favors the two parties.
So if things were more consistent would could do it for other discretionary spending.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

That's a better solution. Give every citizen vouchers for the explicit purpose of political donations to parties or candidates. Oregon does something similar, I believe.