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I’ve wondered if we’d get less ire about taxes if govts allow people to directly choose how a portion of their taxes (5%?) gets allocated when they file. They c

by grej 6y ago

I’ve wondered if we’d get less ire about taxes if govts allow people to directly choose how a portion of their taxes (5%?) gets allocated when they file. They could send it nonprofits for causes they care about. Given the choice of sending it into something they choose or the large centralized government black hole, more people would pick to allocate to something they care about. Carbon capture could be just one of these choices, and a lot of people care about it.

ta1234567890 6y ago
With today's technology, there's really no excuse for keeping governmental/political decision power away from people. Most budget/spending and political decisions by the government should be subject to approval by the people. Everybody should have a government login and could vote through a website or app. I wouldn't mind voting once or twice per day or even more, as it would be more productive and fulfilling than social media.
- foepys 6y ago
  What happens when people sell their website access and entities vote in the name of thousands of people? Do you think you could detect that?
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    I have no idea. But the current state of affairs seems much worse. Politicians are already bought/influenced by corporations/entities in the open (and of course through back channels as well). There is immense corruption, some of which is even legal (lobbying).
  - zo1 6y ago
    I'd say that's a feature if you let individuals do that, but a bug/fraud otherwise. A while back I heard someone propose the idea of "delegating" your vote to an arbitrary person and they'd vote on individual vote items on your behalf, or consequently "delegate" it yet again to someone above. Essentially creating a giant hierarchy of representation.
    - ta1234567890 6y ago
      Which is already the way things work. All our decision power is delegated to politicians, and we don't get paid and we cant revoke it either, we can only transfer it to some other politician at the end of the term of the current one.
- mac01021 6y ago
  I might agree at the municipal level. I'm not sure people need any more authority or engagement than they already have in making decisions for people 1000 miles away.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  One of the principles of representative democracy is to have some slow down and indirection, so that dangerous decisions are not taken immediatelly in the moment. Otherwise a good populist desinformation campaign can get people to vote their own demise even before more information becomes available.
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    Until there's real data to prove that, I'd say that's just a great excuse for the people in power to keep themselves in power or keep the power to themselves.
    - alexilliamson 6y ago
      It's not data, but it is well documented that the founding fathers were scared of direct democracy and took measures to protect against it (electoral college). I agree that is does smell like a fishy excuse to keep power consolidated, but data doesn't always do well when political philosophy has been entrenched for centuries.
      - ta1234567890 6y ago
        You are right, and that's a big problem. I don't get this obsession with the founding fathers. Those guys are not around anymore. The US is a completely different country now with completely different people. We need to stop going back to the founding fathers for reference, especially when their views only serve to further entrench the people in power and keep it away from the people they are supposed to represent. We also have data now, and for what we don't have data we should be running experiments and collecting data to make better decisions.
        alexilliamson 6y ago
        100%. But the US loves its statues, both literal and metaphorical.
- zo1 6y ago
  It's the dirty little secret when it comes to "Democracy". The idea is simple and noble in that everyone has a say, but then we turn around and go with "representational" systems instead because we don't really want everyone to have a say in everything. Like you said with today's and maybe the last 1-2 decades technology, there is no excuse for not going with more direct democracy like voting. I've argued it before, and get rebutted with things such as "we need to let the experts decide, average people don't understand nuance" or "we don't want rule by mob/majority" or "get involved in your local community meetings instead" or "what if the people vote to exterminate minorities", etc. But the fact of the matter is that some sort of direct-democracy, or individual-level decision making (such as suggested above regarding tax-spending) would allow society to self-correct and adapt without the need for complicated and "expert" interventions. I understand the extreme examples, sure, but we're not even trying to involve the populace more for even minor things. On a side note, with my conspiracy hat on, this is why "electronic" voting is opposed so heavily. That and the whole "votes have to be anonymous yet independently verifiable but not linked to your identity because you might sell your vote" nonsense. Because the natural consequence of a reduction of cost when it comes to voting is that we'd end up voting on more granular things and more often, and we can't have that. Instead we want people to enact change by fostering "movements" and "protesting for change", because that really doesn't do anything at the end of the day.
  - arrosenberg 6y ago
    > Like you said with today's and maybe the last 1-2 decades technology, there is no excuse for not going with more direct democracy like voting. The average American isn't remotely qualified to make these types of decisions. That's why direct democracy has never, ever, in the history of humanity, worked in a society above a few dozen people. > I understand the extreme examples, sure, but we're not even trying to involve the populace more for even minor things. Let's try a non-extreme example - naming a post-office. The lefties want to name it after Rosa Parks and the righties want to name it after Stonewall Jackson. The vote ends up 51/49 in either direction - how do you feel that type of conflict would resolve itself in 2020? It's much, much better for the stability of the government to keep passionate people away from the majority of the mundane work of government. Plebiscites should be reserved only for massive issues, like changes to the Constitution. > On a side note, with my conspiracy hat on, this is why "electronic" voting is opposed so heavily. It's because security experts have repeatedly exposed how flawed these systems are, and how cheaply and effectively voting is done with paper and pencil.
- jfk13 6y ago
  I don't see how people could be expected to have any meaningful understanding of so many, varied, interdependent national budgeting and political decisions. It'd be a full-time occupation to try and stay even superficially aware of the implications of multiple votes per day.
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    Of course they wouldn't. They also don't know anything about what it takes to be president or a senator, but they still get to vote to pick one. We don't need optimal decisions, in fact politicians are also not experts at the decisions they make, even worse, they make decisions based on who paid them to make them. What we need is proper representation and distribution of power.
    - jfk13 6y ago
      Which is, in theory, more or less what we have. In practice, of course, choosing representatives isn't easy, and often the ones we select seem to be more concerned with the interests of powerful/wealthy lobbying groups (and/or furthering their own career within a political party) than the interests of their constituents. I don't know how to fix that, but I'm very doubtful that abandoning representative democracy in favour of direct votes on all governmental decisions would be a positive step. It seems likely to just hand even more power to whichever charismatic populists and fashionable "influencers" can persuade people to vote blindly for whatever they promote.
    - deathanatos 6y ago
      CA is a partial direct democracy via its proposition system. It is currently dealing with a housing crisis more or less directly attributable to bad decisions made via that democracy. The idea of a republic is that one elects a wise leader who can take the time to understand the issues and surround themselves with knowledgeable experts that can help fill in the gaps — which isn't even remotely possible in a direct democracy, as not everyone can know an expert in every necessary field. Now, that said, our country is obviously quite far from an ideal republic. But I think it's other things — gerrymandering, a lack of good participation by voters, and a FPTP voting system that forces a two-party system — which many people think would persist pretty much as-is in a popular vote system —, and forces voters to vote for someone other than who they want to vote for. (Some would also add money-in-government, i.e., rolling back Citizens United; I'm still on the fence there, myself, as it would also prevent coordinated efforts by citizens.)
- missedthecue 6y ago
  This sounds like an unmitigated disaster. Voting already gives us awful results. We don't need more awful results.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
vcanhoto 6y ago
This actually happens in Portugal. When filling your taxes you can select a non-profit to receive a cut (don't remember how much though). Family and most friends live there, and never have I heard about this changing in any way how they feel about taxes.
zo1 6y ago
Why stop at 5%? Why not 50, 100%? So let's assume people don't get the choice of "reducing" their taxes, but get to allocate on a per-budget category level how much of all their individual taxes get allocated? Someone can allocate the whole 100% of their salary to say education and 0% to military/defense spending. Another might decide to put lots into healthcare, plenty in education and none for military. Others would allocate 100% to military, etc. Why would that be broken on a societal level, and how is it not "democratic" to allow people to allocate their "voluntarily given" taxes how they please? What are we afraid of happening? Can we not control the problem slightly and just give them high-level categories to try it out?
- alexilliamson 6y ago
  Not enough people would budget for the military is my guess concerning why we haven't tried it.
  - thekyle 6y ago
    I would expect military to be one of the more popular departments.
- beerandt 6y ago
  Well about half the people in the US don't pay any net income tax. So giving 100% of nothing towards the political goals they desire might be seen as unfair to some. There are merits to such a system, but I suspect they don't align politically with what you intended.
hedora 6y ago
We already have that in the US. The government lets you deduct charitable donations. I’d rather we could earmark our tax payments. I wouldn’t send anything to any department involved in trampling basic human rights. I also wouldn’t pay a cent to oil or corn subsidies. In such a system, I imagine Amtrak and the department of education would be getting 10x more than they do now. Similarly, I suspect the US would be carbon negative in a few years. The supreme court ruled money is speech, so I argue that not letting me earmark my payments is suppressing my speech.
- refurb 6y ago
  I think you overestimate the number of Americans that hold your views.
thekyle 6y ago
What you're describing is called participatory budgeting and is used in some places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting

by grej 6y ago

ta1234567890 6y ago

With today's technology, there's really no excuse for keeping governmental/political decision power away from people. Most budget/spending and political decisions by the government should be subject to approval by the people. Everybody should have a government login and could vote through a website or app. I wouldn't mind voting once or twice per day or even more, as it would be more productive and fulfilling than social media.

foepys 6y ago
What happens when people sell their website access and entities vote in the name of thousands of people? Do you think you could detect that?
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  I have no idea. But the current state of affairs seems much worse. Politicians are already bought/influenced by corporations/entities in the open (and of course through back channels as well). There is immense corruption, some of which is even legal (lobbying).
- zo1 6y ago
  I'd say that's a feature if you let individuals do that, but a bug/fraud otherwise. A while back I heard someone propose the idea of "delegating" your vote to an arbitrary person and they'd vote on individual vote items on your behalf, or consequently "delegate" it yet again to someone above. Essentially creating a giant hierarchy of representation.
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    Which is already the way things work. All our decision power is delegated to politicians, and we don't get paid and we cant revoke it either, we can only transfer it to some other politician at the end of the term of the current one.
mac01021 6y ago
I might agree at the municipal level. I'm not sure people need any more authority or engagement than they already have in making decisions for people 1000 miles away.
m4rtink 6y ago
One of the principles of representative democracy is to have some slow down and indirection, so that dangerous decisions are not taken immediatelly in the moment. Otherwise a good populist desinformation campaign can get people to vote their own demise even before more information becomes available.
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  Until there's real data to prove that, I'd say that's just a great excuse for the people in power to keep themselves in power or keep the power to themselves.
  - alexilliamson 6y ago
    It's not data, but it is well documented that the founding fathers were scared of direct democracy and took measures to protect against it (electoral college). I agree that is does smell like a fishy excuse to keep power consolidated, but data doesn't always do well when political philosophy has been entrenched for centuries.
    - ta1234567890 6y ago
      You are right, and that's a big problem. I don't get this obsession with the founding fathers. Those guys are not around anymore. The US is a completely different country now with completely different people. We need to stop going back to the founding fathers for reference, especially when their views only serve to further entrench the people in power and keep it away from the people they are supposed to represent. We also have data now, and for what we don't have data we should be running experiments and collecting data to make better decisions.
      - alexilliamson 6y ago
        100%. But the US loves its statues, both literal and metaphorical.
zo1 6y ago
It's the dirty little secret when it comes to "Democracy". The idea is simple and noble in that everyone has a say, but then we turn around and go with "representational" systems instead because we don't really want everyone to have a say in everything. Like you said with today's and maybe the last 1-2 decades technology, there is no excuse for not going with more direct democracy like voting. I've argued it before, and get rebutted with things such as "we need to let the experts decide, average people don't understand nuance" or "we don't want rule by mob/majority" or "get involved in your local community meetings instead" or "what if the people vote to exterminate minorities", etc. But the fact of the matter is that some sort of direct-democracy, or individual-level decision making (such as suggested above regarding tax-spending) would allow society to self-correct and adapt without the need for complicated and "expert" interventions. I understand the extreme examples, sure, but we're not even trying to involve the populace more for even minor things. On a side note, with my conspiracy hat on, this is why "electronic" voting is opposed so heavily. That and the whole "votes have to be anonymous yet independently verifiable but not linked to your identity because you might sell your vote" nonsense. Because the natural consequence of a reduction of cost when it comes to voting is that we'd end up voting on more granular things and more often, and we can't have that. Instead we want people to enact change by fostering "movements" and "protesting for change", because that really doesn't do anything at the end of the day.
- arrosenberg 6y ago
  > Like you said with today's and maybe the last 1-2 decades technology, there is no excuse for not going with more direct democracy like voting. The average American isn't remotely qualified to make these types of decisions. That's why direct democracy has never, ever, in the history of humanity, worked in a society above a few dozen people. > I understand the extreme examples, sure, but we're not even trying to involve the populace more for even minor things. Let's try a non-extreme example - naming a post-office. The lefties want to name it after Rosa Parks and the righties want to name it after Stonewall Jackson. The vote ends up 51/49 in either direction - how do you feel that type of conflict would resolve itself in 2020? It's much, much better for the stability of the government to keep passionate people away from the majority of the mundane work of government. Plebiscites should be reserved only for massive issues, like changes to the Constitution. > On a side note, with my conspiracy hat on, this is why "electronic" voting is opposed so heavily. It's because security experts have repeatedly exposed how flawed these systems are, and how cheaply and effectively voting is done with paper and pencil.
jfk13 6y ago
I don't see how people could be expected to have any meaningful understanding of so many, varied, interdependent national budgeting and political decisions. It'd be a full-time occupation to try and stay even superficially aware of the implications of multiple votes per day.
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  Of course they wouldn't. They also don't know anything about what it takes to be president or a senator, but they still get to vote to pick one. We don't need optimal decisions, in fact politicians are also not experts at the decisions they make, even worse, they make decisions based on who paid them to make them. What we need is proper representation and distribution of power.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    Which is, in theory, more or less what we have. In practice, of course, choosing representatives isn't easy, and often the ones we select seem to be more concerned with the interests of powerful/wealthy lobbying groups (and/or furthering their own career within a political party) than the interests of their constituents. I don't know how to fix that, but I'm very doubtful that abandoning representative democracy in favour of direct votes on all governmental decisions would be a positive step. It seems likely to just hand even more power to whichever charismatic populists and fashionable "influencers" can persuade people to vote blindly for whatever they promote.
  - deathanatos 6y ago
    CA is a partial direct democracy via its proposition system. It is currently dealing with a housing crisis more or less directly attributable to bad decisions made via that democracy. The idea of a republic is that one elects a wise leader who can take the time to understand the issues and surround themselves with knowledgeable experts that can help fill in the gaps — which isn't even remotely possible in a direct democracy, as not everyone can know an expert in every necessary field. Now, that said, our country is obviously quite far from an ideal republic. But I think it's other things — gerrymandering, a lack of good participation by voters, and a FPTP voting system that forces a two-party system — which many people think would persist pretty much as-is in a popular vote system —, and forces voters to vote for someone other than who they want to vote for. (Some would also add money-in-government, i.e., rolling back Citizens United; I'm still on the fence there, myself, as it would also prevent coordinated efforts by citizens.)
missedthecue 6y ago
This sounds like an unmitigated disaster. Voting already gives us awful results. We don't need more awful results.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

vcanhoto 6y ago

This actually happens in Portugal. When filling your taxes you can select a non-profit to receive a cut (don't remember how much though). Family and most friends live there, and never have I heard about this changing in any way how they feel about taxes.

zo1 6y ago

Why stop at 5%? Why not 50, 100%? So let's assume people don't get the choice of "reducing" their taxes, but get to allocate on a per-budget category level how much of all their individual taxes get allocated? Someone can allocate the whole 100% of their salary to say education and 0% to military/defense spending. Another might decide to put lots into healthcare, plenty in education and none for military. Others would allocate 100% to military, etc. Why would that be broken on a societal level, and how is it not "democratic" to allow people to allocate their "voluntarily given" taxes how they please? What are we afraid of happening? Can we not control the problem slightly and just give them high-level categories to try it out?

alexilliamson 6y ago
Not enough people would budget for the military is my guess concerning why we haven't tried it.
- thekyle 6y ago
  I would expect military to be one of the more popular departments.
beerandt 6y ago
Well about half the people in the US don't pay any net income tax. So giving 100% of nothing towards the political goals they desire might be seen as unfair to some. There are merits to such a system, but I suspect they don't align politically with what you intended.

hedora 6y ago

We already have that in the US. The government lets you deduct charitable donations. I’d rather we could earmark our tax payments. I wouldn’t send anything to any department involved in trampling basic human rights. I also wouldn’t pay a cent to oil or corn subsidies. In such a system, I imagine Amtrak and the department of education would be getting 10x more than they do now. Similarly, I suspect the US would be carbon negative in a few years. The supreme court ruled money is speech, so I argue that not letting me earmark my payments is suppressing my speech.

refurb 6y ago
I think you overestimate the number of Americans that hold your views.

thekyle 6y ago

What you're describing is called participatory budgeting and is used in some places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting