perfidy

What if you could decide how your tax dollars could be allocated? How would you divy up the government's share of your income? More money for butter, or guns? Food stamps for whales, or send the Marines to Mars? James at Outside the Beltway links to an article by Charles Murray posing that very question.

I've thought about this before, and even posted this on the subject, though I'm too lazy to find the link. I think that a system like this would be hideously complex to implement. It would wreak havoc on the smooth functioning of the government, since budgets could be subject to wild swings tax dollars follow the fickle whims of the taxpayers. It might even be unconstitutional, since the Legislature is given the power to disburse funds from the treasury.

However, it would also be really cool. It would be a stupendous demonstration of faith in the common people. Lobbying would take on whole new forms, and arguable far less corrupt ones. Special interest groups would actually have to convince real, individual people that their particular hobby horses are the ones that deserve money. Groups of citizens could organize to direct funding to favored projects. Public involvement in politics would (alright, might) soar as people follow the projects they sent their money to. Think of the pride you would feel when you see a mars probe that you funded lands and starts poking the Martians in the belly. Or when a bomb that you funded blows up an enemy compound. And so on.

You'd have to allow some flexibility though - something on the order of a discretionary fund that would allow the government to maintain funding of secret projects, and of projects that got zeroed out by the populace but are deemed important enough to be maintained. Citizens could also be given the option of putting their money in this fund, or assigning one of several default distributions.

But I think that Charles and James are right that a large percentage of the funds would be pointed in the direction of tangible government services. And I really can't think of a downside to that.