Representing ourselves

[hester_prynne]

I've been thinking alot about this, rather in a solutionary frenzy.


How about taxpayers designating how they want their tax money spent! You know, like United Way lets donaters designate where the donation goes?

Is this possible? Or is it just a wild idea that makes no sense in the long run? Should it not even be thought of???????
Seems like it would give us some say, give the government a big clue.....as to who we are....or want to be....
?????

H

[e_dog]

sounds like a great way for the rich to screw the poor, perhaps even more than currently occurs.

the poor pay relatively little taxes, the rich, and corporations relatively large. if tax payer gets to say where their money go, you can guess the results.

[hester_prynne]

Perhaps.
But on the other hand, E Dawggy, the poor outnumber the wealthy by a huge amount.....

It may not be as blatently bleak as you appear to think it is.


I think we can, I think we can.........
(I always resort to pulling uphill.....)
All aboard!

Tell all the world...join hands...!

H

[mnaz]

What we need to do(at the fed. level)....

Bar lobbyists from D.C. for a good long while.

Enact massive campaign reform. Remove, or at least diffuse the creeping corporate ownership of our "elected" leaders.

Outlaw "pork-barrel" spending tacked onto unrelated legislative bills at the last minute by senior Congresspeople, just because they can.

Create a viable new political party, or parties. The Dems and Repubs are largely whored out to mega-corporate interests, and care more about bleeding us to feed those interests and about maintaining power than they care about principled governance.

Abolish the damned electoral college. It gave us the nightmare of W for (potentially) eight years!

There's more, of course.

Will any of these things ever come to pass? When hell turns into a skating rink, of course.


ps... It would be nice if at least taxes to pay for war were optional. I wouldn't have spent a dime on Iraq toward its "solution" that our current disaster of an Admin. gave us.

[firsty]

we cant vote on every tax spending bill.

our country is simply now too large and diverse for our form of representational democracy to work. it just doesnt work. it's incestual, corrupt and too detached from its constituents.

we need either a new system or better people in place to run the system.

[V-Agent]

Taxation ought to have a built in step-distribution system.

Let's say that out of income from taxation, 35% goes back into the local area it came from, such as town or city, 35% goes to the local state or territory and 20% to the federal coffers.

This way a more constant stream of revenue would be forthcoming for local concerns such as schools, hospitals, emergency services, public services and infrastructure, etc.

If only, huh?

[firsty]

it has to be way more complex than that. for one thing, many people work in a different state than the one in which they live. for another thing, different areas have different needs at different times. not to mention the amount of money that the feds kick back to the states for doing their bidding, whether it be for holding auto safety standards or for forcing schools to support a moral agenda.

this global economy requires a broader tax view, not a more divided one.

in theory, we elect our state reps to support our state's needs. the biggest problem with our money/tax system, it's true, is simply the lobbyists. reps dont fight for the interests of their constituents, they fight for the interest of the highest bidder from the lobbyist pool. very simply, if there were no financial or other incentives to behave a certain way, legislators would be left with no option but to fight for their citizens or simply be voted out of office. lobbyists complicate the issue, they skew facts and statistics that are then put falsely before the public. they are an evil and self serving bunch, but legislators are unlikely to stab this source of revenue in the eyes.