America is About to Lose One of Its Best Public Resource: Public Libraries

[quakerboy]

46. I dont recall having been presented that choice

on a ballot.

I really wonder what would happen if you got the opportunity to direct your federal tax dollars yourself, at least to a fairly general level. Make the last page of your tax return a sheet with 5 options, Defense, Social services, Education, Transportation, National Debt. Each person gets to decide what percent of your next years taxes should go to each of the categories. Im sure you would have to broaden and define the categories because there's a whole spectrum of things our government does, those were just off the top of my head trying to keep it fairly simple.

I'm sure it would make an unholy mess of things, but it would be very interesting to see where people put their priorities as compared to the budgets our elected officials put out. I'm sure you would have to set aside a percentage to cover previous obligations (ie pensions, interest payments, etc), but i wonder what evolutions you would see in government operations. Customer service and public opinion would probably become a much greater priority, as billion dollar jets that dont fly or NSA spying could negatively effect next years budgets.