Last night I was thinking about taxes. I think it’s safe to say that everyone at least slightly resents paying taxes and only does so out fear of punishment. Civic duty blah blah blah, we send that check to the IRS (or allow them to dock our weekly salary) because we’re worried John Law is gonna come after us. If you have the courage to resist and stop paying, eventually federal agents will storm your house as they did to Ed and Elaine Brown.
I was thinking, though, I’m actually not opposed to paying taxes, I’m opposed to how my taxes are spent. I fully believe that either you pay for schools or you pay for prisons so chipping in some of my income to aid the community makes perfect sense to me. I’m even fine with thinking of the larger community and sending some of my money to Mississippi or Alaska or where ever. I absolutely hate, however, thinking about how I payed Cheney’s salary for eight years, I buy bombs to drop on Iraqis, and I’m subsidizing corporate imperialism. But, what if I could choose how my money was spent? I don’t want to micro manage the federal budget, but it seems to me that I should be able to have my say and I don’t think it would be too disruptive.
Imagine if every year in December the government announced it’s budget. They prioritized military spending and whatever however they think is best. When people paid their taxes then, they would have the option to either accept the government’s budget and let their money be divided up accordingly, or put together their own budget. Now, we don’t want this to get out of hand, so it’s not like everyone could decide where every penny of their taxes went. But, you could choose to put 50% into education, 10% into transportation, and on and on. No one is thinking about individual projects, the agencies still make those decisions themselves, but you can choose roughly where your money goes. After April 15, the IRS looks at how much money is going to each area and the budget is adjusted accordingly. Sure, no politician worth his under the table lobbying payments would ever support this, but I think it’s a great plan. Maybe I can get the Greens to support it. Or those Tea Party folks.
