[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
There has been some interesting ideas put forth on this page. One thing that I often worry about in this discussion, though, is that many people who say they want to reform that tax code REALLY just want to “starve the beast.” That’s fair enough, no one likes taxes. But I think it would be nice if we looked at implementation of these proposals as well.
If we are going to tax at “15%” then we should also be talking about how much of a deficit we will have at that rate. OR if you want to cut spending, we should talk about that at the same time. I know a lot of people on this thread have histories of saying where they don’t want their money going though, but it’d be nice to be up front about just how much would have to be cut, when you think it should be cut, and how that will realistically affect society.
DB, your idea sounds interesting. However, how general would you make the categories? How specific? How would bureaucracies be affected if they knew they only had a one year implementation period? What if a project would take several years (e.g. education reform)? Would you vote to put your money into specific categories (e.g. “education”)? or departments (e.g. DOE)? Do you think this might cause a “media frenzy” within the different organizations? Wouldn’t they all then, by necessity, have to get REALLY GOOD at marketing themselves to the public? These are just random questions. The core of your idea (a greater control of where “MY” tax dollars are spent) is a good one.
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I’d make the categories very general at first, as well as limiting the categories to just a few essential options at first, such as education, defense spending and paying off our debt. Right now I think the avg % of our income going to taxes is something like 35%, give or take. Most of that would initially be spent the way it is now and we’d only choose for ourselves where a very small % of that goes (perhaps 1-5% of our income to start).
The process would take years to implement, maybe ten or fifteen years. So all these various bureaucracies would know ahead of time that the day of reckoning is coming and that they’d better be on track by the time we can all vote where all of our tax dollars go. Any bureaucracy/program/etc wouldn’t have one year to implement their plans, they’d just be judged by us on a year-to-year basis as to how well they’re doing. Only in exreme cases would we just pull the rug out from under one of these entities entirely, which would happen due to outlandish ineffectiveness anyways.
But the two big roadblocks to this plan are significant, no doubt. The first roadblock is us. For the plan to work in the long run, we’d all have to become much more educated about everything the govt does. This is something we need anyways, and this plan might force it upon us, but there’s always going to be a bunch of assholes who don’t give a shit and put their taxes into the flavor-of-the-month. I think the way we avoid this is a slow implementation of the plan so as to prepare us for what would ultimately be a dramatic change, but we might also fall flat on our faces at first and learn the hard way to pay attention to shit.
The second roadblock is much harder to scale, and I admit I don’t have much of a solution for it. The media could definitely become a huge problem. As it is, sometimes I feel like I’m watching an infomercial for GOP policies when I watch FoxNews and I feel like the people on CNN are the same, just to a lesser extent. Sure there are other sources of media, but these are two of the big ones. It could get a lot worse with my plan. The leap of faith is to put our trust in the American people’s ability to see through the media bullshit. When a braindead dunce like Palin ends up on the GOP ticket and the left hails Obama as the Messiah, it kind of blows that theory up.
But the bottom line is that my plan would put the direction of this country much more squarely in the hands of the people. In the end, I don’t think this is a bad thing, as long as we’re ready for it. [/quote]
It sounds like we have very similar opinions of where the country is right now and what the major roadblocks to this proposed legislation would be. I also think that your examples of Obama (as messiah) and Palin are appropriate. I think that the first phase of you plan might work. But, honestly, I doubt that the country could be ready for such a move (as are in the later stages of your plan) in the next 20 years. Of course, 20 years ago I said that America would “never” have a black or woman president…so things do change. I guess we’ll see what comes. This, in combination with other things, could be a step in the right direction.