4 ms·

Your tax dollars also go to the social safety net, education, funding the arts, maintaining roads, keeping parks nice places to visit, and a whole bunch of othe

Your tax dollars also go to the social safety net, education, funding the arts, maintaining roads, keeping parks nice places to visit, and a whole bunch of other stuff that is generally not in conflict with pacifism. Should these babies be thrown out with the military bathwater?

djKianoosh 6y ago
The majority of these dollars in the US go to military bathwater. Perhaps there may be a way for citizens to earmark their preferences directly for where they feel their tax dollars should go. Yeah yeah go vote of course. But Congress acts too slow. I am talking about a more direct system, maybe with limits sure. But as it is, Congress has a lot of the purse strings, and maybe individual citizens could have more say-so with an improved system.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Earmarking your own dollars for what you support might make you feel better, but it won’t change anything. Money is fungible by design, every dollar of yours that’s earmarked for welfare programs frees up someone else’s for the military. Sure, if everyone did that it would have an impact, but that seems pretty improbable.
- mushufasa 6y ago
  This would not be good. This is essentially what a nonprofit does. Then what ends up funded is what's whimsical. For example, people donate to save cute polar bears instead of saving the ugly worm that fixes the soil problems.
  - djKianoosh 6y ago
    Then maybe not open it up at that fine grain a level. And that's too specific an example anyway, as the budgeting process is way more complex: https://www.usa.gov/budget https://www.usa.gov/budget So really, the citizens' choice in my example would have be to designate percentages at the top level, say to DoJ, DoD, DHS, etc. That in and of itself would put a lot of power back in the citizens' hands. Of course, I don't see this happening, but that would be transformative. And we'd see a lot of campaigning/advertising/propaganda from each Department asking for taxpayers to direct their funds to them... But my original premise was that Congress is gridlocked and if you think they're not serving the citizens' best interests, then this is an alternative from left field.
dariosalvi78 6y ago
You will never 100% agree on what your government spends its money on. Vote the ones that you agree with, lobby and campaign, these are the tools we have in democracy. And I would 10000% prefer the money to be collected and spent by a democratically accountable government (with all its flaws) than a few well-intended billionaires a-la Gates.

djKianoosh 6y ago

The majority of these dollars in the US go to military bathwater. Perhaps there may be a way for citizens to earmark their preferences directly for where they feel their tax dollars should go. Yeah yeah go vote of course. But Congress acts too slow. I am talking about a more direct system, maybe with limits sure. But as it is, Congress has a lot of the purse strings, and maybe individual citizens could have more say-so with an improved system.

ashtonkem 6y ago
Earmarking your own dollars for what you support might make you feel better, but it won’t change anything. Money is fungible by design, every dollar of yours that’s earmarked for welfare programs frees up someone else’s for the military. Sure, if everyone did that it would have an impact, but that seems pretty improbable.
mushufasa 6y ago
This would not be good. This is essentially what a nonprofit does. Then what ends up funded is what's whimsical. For example, people donate to save cute polar bears instead of saving the ugly worm that fixes the soil problems.
- djKianoosh 6y ago
  Then maybe not open it up at that fine grain a level. And that's too specific an example anyway, as the budgeting process is way more complex: https://www.usa.gov/budget https://www.usa.gov/budget So really, the citizens' choice in my example would have be to designate percentages at the top level, say to DoJ, DoD, DHS, etc. That in and of itself would put a lot of power back in the citizens' hands. Of course, I don't see this happening, but that would be transformative. And we'd see a lot of campaigning/advertising/propaganda from each Department asking for taxpayers to direct their funds to them... But my original premise was that Congress is gridlocked and if you think they're not serving the citizens' best interests, then this is an alternative from left field.

dariosalvi78 6y ago

You will never 100% agree on what your government spends its money on. Vote the ones that you agree with, lobby and campaign, these are the tools we have in democracy. And I would 10000% prefer the money to be collected and spent by a democratically accountable government (with all its flaws) than a few well-intended billionaires a-la Gates.