To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Americans for Elective Taxation Policies
What if, while filling out your taxes, you had the option to decide what percentage of your tax dollars goes where? As is, citizens have no real control over the direction of this country, socially or economically. The way the system is now, we basically all get the short end of the stick since we're all sitting around crossing our fingers that our representatives will vote and act exactly the way we wanted and expected, which is completely impossible: one person cannot feasibly represent millions of different view points with a consistently objective approach (it's called bias and we all have it).
We need an elective option in our tax system to give individual citizens more control over where their dollars are going when it enters the coffers of federal and state governments: either you just let the government spread around your dough as needed, or you tell them exactly where you want it to go. A liberal could send their taxes toward welfare and international well-being, while a conservative could send their dollars toward defense and infrastructure. If programs did not get enough funding to survive, they clearly weren't all that important to the American people.
The most obvious benefit to such a plan would be seeing a country that reflects the needs and desires of all its citizens instead of just its wealthy ones, a country in which the actions and choices of its citizens have direct bearing and consequence on their lives. It would also be effective in weeding out corruption: if more people vote for their taxes to go to roads and roads do not improve within a timely fashion, it will be quite obvious tax payer dollars are being misused.
To be clear, this in not a proposal for citizens to be able to get out of taxes: we'd still be taxed either way. This way, though, citizens could feel better knowing their tax dollars are not going toward policies they find immoral or wasteful.
We need an elective option in our tax system to give individual citizens more control over where their dollars are going when it enters the coffers of federal and state governments: either you just let the government spread around your dough as needed, or you tell them exactly where you want it to go. A liberal could send their taxes toward welfare and international well-being, while a conservative could send their dollars toward defense and infrastructure. If programs did not get enough funding to survive, they clearly weren't all that important to the American people.
The most obvious benefit to such a plan would be seeing a country that reflects the needs and desires of all its citizens instead of just its wealthy ones, a country in which the actions and choices of its citizens have direct bearing and consequence on their lives. It would also be effective in weeding out corruption: if more people vote for their taxes to go to roads and roads do not improve within a timely fashion, it will be quite obvious tax payer dollars are being misused.
To be clear, this in not a proposal for citizens to be able to get out of taxes: we'd still be taxed either way. This way, though, citizens could feel better knowing their tax dollars are not going toward policies they find immoral or wasteful.
Why is this important?
We need an a tax system that allows individual citizens to choose which programs their money goes to. It is absurd to call this a democracy when citizens have so little control over their government, its policies, and its spending (especially while there is constant aggravation over this point). It's time for the United States to get a bit more democratic in its own borders.