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!!!
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.
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.
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.
First, you’re creating confusing terminology by mixing things like “100% of 50%”;
Second, I question the value of this concept given you yourself undermine the mindset behind by specifying “We’ll still let the government decide where 50% of your taxes go”.
In effect “We only trust people enough to let them decide where 50% of their taxes go, we still need the government to decide where the other 50% goes.”
So what, ultimately, is the point? Because all I’m seeing here is a needless ‘feel-good’ proposal that doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
If you’re not smart enough to understand the concept of 100% of 50%, then perhaps you should just let the govt make all your decisions.
As for the govt’s 50%, that is for the necessary programs that no one wants to fund, but still need to be funded. Example: no one will fund the IRS, but they still need to be funded.
Its not about “feel good”, its about showing the govt what the people really want funded. So, like DOGE, we can get rid of the waste.
Except there are very much a lot of people who don’t want the IRS funded.
Meaning you’re still left with the problem of a proposal that undermines itself.
What do the people really want funded? Doesn’t matter, because the government can still direct that 50% wherever it wants. Getting rid of waste…except for that 50% that is directed as the government sees fit.
It’s ultimately a proposal that wants to have its cake and eat it too.
