Direct Democracy in Budgeting
Oct. 1st, 2010 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kent_allard_jrTa-Nehisi Coates posted this chart from the Third Way foundation:
I think the notion of a "taxpayers receipt" is a great idea; we'd have a much saner politics in this country if the public understood where tax dollars were spent. I made a suggestion in comments:
Nevertheless, I don't think representative government works properly with a badly misinformed electorate; all that happens is that the public elects folks who promise to fulfill their fairy tales. Today, when the average American thinks Foreign Aid takes up 40% of federal expenditures, we get nonsense like the last 30 years of Republican budgets, promising to slash taxes and balance the budget without cutting any program of substance.
With my proposal, the public would be forced to acknowledge reality. Want to cut spending? Here's where the budget goes; tell me when you've deleted $1,000 you think we should save; enjoy! In the end, I think direct democracy with an informed electorate works better than a representative government without one, so a democratic process that forces the public to be informed would be superior to what we have today.
I think the notion of a "taxpayers receipt" is a great idea; we'd have a much saner politics in this country if the public understood where tax dollars were spent. I made a suggestion in comments:
Y'know, direct democracy gets a bad rap -- deservedly so -- but we'd have a saner fiscal policy in this country if we asked folks to mail these back, crossing out the items they didn't want to pay for, and then dropped programs that were crossed out my a majority of taxpayers. I'm sure the public would make lousy choices, but at least they'd be grounded in reality, and politicians wouldn't give us nonsense like the "Pledge to America" anymore.People responded with horror -- you can't mention "direct democracy" without folks going "California!!!! Nooooooooooooo" -- but I stand by it. Not all forms of direct democracy are equal, and I would never say America should adopt a California-style referendum system.
Nevertheless, I don't think representative government works properly with a badly misinformed electorate; all that happens is that the public elects folks who promise to fulfill their fairy tales. Today, when the average American thinks Foreign Aid takes up 40% of federal expenditures, we get nonsense like the last 30 years of Republican budgets, promising to slash taxes and balance the budget without cutting any program of substance.
With my proposal, the public would be forced to acknowledge reality. Want to cut spending? Here's where the budget goes; tell me when you've deleted $1,000 you think we should save; enjoy! In the end, I think direct democracy with an informed electorate works better than a representative government without one, so a democratic process that forces the public to be informed would be superior to what we have today.
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Date: 2010-10-01 06:31 pm (UTC)I'll state what I stated on FB: the only objection I can think of to this idea is that an individual receipt doesn't give a complete accounting of taxation/spending -- for example, all the plebes would howl about the cost of Social Security (it would be the top ticket for many low income taxpayers)...even though Social Security would vanish for high earners, since it's paid for regressively.
To further the example, we spend about as much as a country on the military as we do on Social Security -- but even with this system, over two-thirds of the country might not know it.