What if there was a portion of our taxes that went to whatever discretionary fund the taxpayer chose? I haven't thought it out and have no opinion on it... I could see benefits and drawbacks to it and of course it couldn't be a huge amount because certain things NEED to be funded without question - defense, infrastructure (to name two)

has this ever been proposed?

5/22/2014 2:18:30 PM

I think it'd be an interesting way for underfunded projects to acquire a bit more than their usual share of the budget funds. I want to say that it would encourage the different departments to show exactly how the money would be beneficial, what results the money would help them achieve. It would probably just end up like our political campaigns though: empty talk and posturing to earn a little more support

5/22/2014 2:26:45 PM

of course if there was the option of "tax rebate" we would see how many people truly are conservatives

5/22/2014 2:36:55 PM

defense doesn't need to be funded, that's not a given, at least certainly not anywhere near the level at which it is currently funded.

5/22/2014 2:37:50 PM

Are we talking about taxes at the federal level or state/local level? Because that determination would make a huge impact on what decisions you could make.

While one could make a gross generalization here and say that conservatives would send most of their tax money to defense and liberals would send most of their money to entitlements, I think a lot of people would take it seriously, however you would have to really oversimplify the categories to get people to take it seriously I think. And those categories would depend on state or federal taxes.

I can come up with a lot more ideas for state taxes than federal...public works such as roads, bridges, etc, education...

5/22/2014 2:41:39 PM

i've bounced that idea around in my head a few times. no telling what would end up happening. a few departments wouldn't make it, which might be a good thing long term, but it'd also mean lost jobs and that sort of thing.

5/22/2014 2:43:41 PM

Some arguments are predictable. One particular view is that all our current programs are "necessary", and if they are not necessary, then we should just cut them right now.

Plus, many budgets are secret. The public is not told how much funding several intelligence agencies get. Obviously you couldn't possibly vote to give them money, or to defund them.

Obviously, our federal government is heavily invested in entitlement spending. Those are obligations that are not "ours" to decide on anyway. We pay them because we promised to.

Could you deal with any fraction of our federal spending this way? Not if the people being funded had anything to say about it. Plus, those programs tend to be pet projects of the executive branch (and some senators) anyway, which are the most heavily politically defended. The wisdom of letting the public choose research areas is questionable anyway.


The best similar approach, I think, would be global referendums to cut spending on certain military things. Get a majority of the population in both the US, Russia, and China to cut certain parts of their military, so there's no real pro-defense argument against it anyway. But... the US has superior strength to start out with, so politicians would claim that any possible reduction would be unbalanced. Plus, the powers that be would unleash massive media spending to kill the idea, regardless of its merits.

5/22/2014 3:17:57 PM

What is the advantage of this plan over bond referendums?

5/22/2014 4:05:02 PM

i don't know of many federal bond referendums. but i guess the difference that if you say "hey, this money is already in the public domain, but you get to choose where it goes" you might get a better response.

5/22/2014 5:03:01 PM

How would voting work, it couldn't be majority or it would just be a system of taxing rural areas and interior states to fund projects in major metro areas and populated states

5/22/2014 6:45:36 PM

i'm not sure what you mean. What i'm talking about is a section of your yearly tax form where you say "this is where i want X percentage of my money to go."

(of course i'd send all of mine to NASA.)

5/22/2014 7:01:48 PM

or have choices set up and you could designate what percent of your "at will" taxes to... to me it seems like it would give our populace a more "active" role in our government.

5/22/2014 7:03:40 PM

oh i thought you meant a sum of money people got to vote on where it goes, like America's Next Top Project or something.

5/22/2014 7:22:09 PM

I worry about NASA and other research. I don't worry about a 20% cut or something on that scale. I worry that all the most important programs for long-term research will get hit hard by cuts at the Federal level.

It's mostly defense and health care that it's fighting against. That, and the ever-powerful will to lower taxes. Social security shouldn't be a problem, but politicians have been fighting damned hard to make it one.

The worrisome part is the future we'll leave. The only truly technological advancements will be happening in areas that have a consistent market and are able to make incremental changes. Sure, that will advance somethings. Maybe we'll have a super-Dreamliner plane with 10% less fuel consumption in our children's lifetime. Yay.

More and more, it looks like the draw on resources will come down to route services and industries where the entity paying doesn't have a choice in the matter. Low wage and low skill jobs have remained fairly strong, and this is quite possibly more disturbing than the loss of mid-skill jobs.

Even worse, when the US drops the ball, I don't expect that other nations will pick it up. China, for instance, has a motivation problem regarding large scale nationally funded research. For one, they're generally not the world leader in those areas, and two, there's a stronger focus on technologies that offer inroads to relatively near-term markets. You need an argument that says it'll help China sustain more 7% y-o-y growth.

5/23/2014 10:46:38 AM