Let Me Choose where my Taxes go

Economy
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1

When filing our Income Taxes, allow the Citizens to decide where our tax money should be spent.
half goes to the General Fund, allowing the govt to choose where it goes.

BUT…
Allow us to choose where the other half should go. Allow us to breakdown where we want our half spent. Break it down by percentages, either by topic, department, or general concept.

So, the citizen is given 100% of their half of their tax burden to break up by percentage:

Example: Citizen A wants their money focused on Defense, so they select 25% to go to the D.O.D. or Dept of the Army or Navy, etc. But they also want to help the Veterans, so they choose 25% for the VA. They then have 50% left. 20% to DOT for infrastructure, 15% to TSA/FAA because they travel a lot, and the last 15% to Dept of the Interior because they like to visit National Parks.

Example 2: Citizen B wants to focus on helping others, so they give 25% to HHS to help fight homelessness, and 25% to the EPA to help the Environment. They are also focused on helping sick people, so they designate 25% to NIH/CDC to help fight diseases. Finally, they assign their last 25% to the National Weather Service, to help fight Climate Change.

Example 3: Citizen C doesn’t care, so they simply allot 100% to the General Fund.

This will allow those want their tax dollars focused on a specific topic to “Put their money where their mouth is!”
Let the people vote with their wallets, and you’ll never see a more true vote on where to spend our taxes. Give the citizens a legitimate say on where their money is spent!!!

2

I don’t see how such a concept would be realistically feasible in practice.

3

Its simple, add an entry on the 1040 form that offers up to 10 entries (thus allowing a minimum of 10% per entry), and lists all the possible selections you can choose from (i.e.: different departments and agencies).
Piece of cake.

4

I mean on a large scale.

Let’s say, for example, that hardly anyone says “I want my taxes to go to roads and bridges”, leaving far less in tax dollars for keeping, say, the national interstate system functioning properly than is actually needed.

Then what?

5

That’s what the other 50% is for. The govt still gets half of everyone’s taxes to spend as they see fit. But we get to spend half on what we see fit. And to use your example… I’d be willing to bet that every trucker out there will give all their money to the interstate roads. :wink: