Would you favor new legislation allowing taxpayers more power to dictate the use of their dollars?

Question

If taxpayers were allowed to earmark up to 10% of their tax donation money for the exclusive use of one or more taxpayer specified government departments, would you support that change of legislation.. and do you think it could work?

Example:
Taxpayer X has a $1000 tax burden and he expresses his option to designate that it will be spent in the following way:

By mandate of law:
90% automatically goes into the general fund ($900)

By taxpayer choice:
10% to the Department of Education ($10)
30% to the Department of Defense ($30)
10% to the Department of Transportation ($10)

Would such a change better serve the desires of our population while allowing our legislators to continue flexibly allocating money from the general fund for running the government?

Answer 1

That would be awesome. Won't happen, but it would be nice to direct our money somewhere that we feel it is needed.

The middle class gets screwed over w/ taxes regardless though. The rich get tax breaks because of their "donations" so they don't have to pay much at all, and the poor get to milk the system. The middle class gets to pay for most of it.

So as a middle class citizen, yes, I would like to dictate where my tax money went.

Answer 2

nice idea [I've seen it before] -- but likely no score.

You'd have to amend the Constitution, which currently specifies that Congress has the sole power to authorize spending [if the people specified more spending on some popular subject than Congress had appropriated, one of the two would have to give].

{If the sum of the taxpayers' wishes were less than the amount appropriated by Congress -- likely with only 10% of taxes earmarkable -- you'd have accomplished nothing but let people sound off.}


And I can't see the states approving that by the necessary 3/4ths margin -- many states would fear that their cherished earmarks [boondoggles like corn based ethanol subsidies] would disappear because urban dwellers [the vast majority] would fund their opposite programs.

[Once direct voting like this gets started, it isn't going to be limited to which programs to fund. It'll quickly grow into laws to be passed and programs to be defunded. Check the various states on stuff like this -- unlimited referendum power in places like California has permitted popular programs to be enacted even though they are very poor science or economics.]


Related problem: arguably, this would permit a minority of the highest income taxpayers to specify spending on some pet issue of theirs [refund of all property tax bills exceeding $100,000 on a primary personal residence, for example] in defiance of the 'equal voting rights' clauses of the Constitution which amount to 'one man - one vote'.


America is a representative republic, not a democracy. The will of the majority is subject to the limits specified in the Constitution ... to prevent abuses of minorities by the majority.


:)

Answer 3

I don't see how this could work since legislators do the budget before the money is spent. It would be difficult to budget for various departments if you don't know how much money they will have. You will wind up with some having too much and some being way short. Some departments would have to scrap plans (how would you like them to scrap that new school in your area) or spend money on useless projects just because they have excess.
We elect our representatives to represent our wishes when doing anything, including allocating money. If they don't follow our wishes, vote them out.

Answer 4

I think that's a great idea very very hard to get done did you know our pentegon cant account for 3 billion dollars that disappeared and no one is held accountable for.