Fri 16 Oct 2009
Citizen Choice in Tax Distribution; Future Government Branding
Posted by USA / Starling under Balkers
[7] Comments
Here’s a little something for your imagination. It is half proposal and half prediction.
As we well know, taxes are rarely enjoyed by anyone. They are simply tolerated more by some and less by others. Part of the reason for this is that the tax system represents a great hole in our democratic influence. We vote for our politicians; but we can’t vote for what they actually do, day to day. We are mandated to pay tax, but even less are we able to influence what happens to that money.
Now that commerce is increasingly global, and money has so many ways to be liquid, this represent an ever more atrocious lack of control every passing day. And so it makes sense that some acknowledgement of this is seen at local levels, where citizens can vote on property tax budgets.
Well, folks, I propose that this be expanded to larger local, then state, and eventually federal levels. The more inclusively higher levels, the better, and the more specific the control, the better.
The advantages of this would be immediate in terms of proactively reinvesting people in their government. There are certain harms that discourage people above all else about the government’s use of their money. For red voters, it is often about funding for abortion or birth control, or for social programs, or inefficiency. For blue voters, it is about war funding, or about misapplication due to diluted policy. These things often lead people to be 1-issue voters, and this only cedes more predictability and control to the “incumbent” parties, contributing to their misrepresentation.
I imagine that if a citizen-controlled tax system were set up, its most simple and therefore likely form to take would be that of denying funding for certain agencies. One would still have to pay their entire tax burden, but they would have some choice in the distribution. So, suddenly, no red voter would have to pay for anything religiously objectionable, and no blue voter would have to pay for elective war. This would mean far more engagement in the process, since a cynical resignation would no longer have to dominate. Paying your taxes could be like shopping at a department store.
So, what are the disadvantages? For one thing, any government agency would feel far less of a sense of security predicting its budget. This could lead them to clean up their act and be accountable, so as to look favorable and deserving. But it could also lead to a raging false-advertising environment. However, the agencies would soon be denied advertising money, and so all advertising would fall to the parties. But the parties would be somewhat marginalized now, since people wouldn’t have to worry as much about electing representatives into full control for 2 to 4 years, since every year they would have the tax referendum. The party would have to worry about its agencies and its reputation every year more than its own culture and identity, since it is now more of just a manager or adviser while the citizen is more the contoller of the treasure.
I’m not enough of a futurist to know how well all that would play out on the internet, the advertising media, or ultimately, the whole information-age.
But time and again, we have learned that it is better to distribute power, rather than keep it concentrated, or worse yet, allow it to concentrate for its own sake. I cite nothing other and nothing less than the whole loose and varied concept of western democracy. Plus we have learned that, when given the choice between evolving and stagnating, evolving is better. Waiting till we are “more ready” doesn’t bear fruit. Think civil rights. What could have been more needed, yet waited longer for, than that?
So, like many types of change, there would be pain. But ultimately it would be worth it.
One more direct yet long-term effect, partly a disadvantage, would be that at first, the agencies would probably still hold a practical monopoly over each of their own core services. Noone’s going to be able to do va like the VA. Noone is going to be able to do forest service like the Forest Service. So if someone in the agency screwed something up, and it led to a giant punishment of the agency come tax time, it could be too hobbled to successfully carry out its services, and the result would be that average citizens had punished each other severely for the fault of “some guy”.
Well, here is some more evolution for you. Possibly even the very first time something like that happened, another agency would see an opportunity to step up and either take over that service for the year, or directly fund the punished agency. The opportunist agency would probably poll its funders to test for approval first. If all went well, it could be a great “coup” for the opportunist agency.
When I mentioned “monopoly”, that gave a hint of what could come, from further in the future. Movements in the culture could naturally prevent monopolies by gravitating to different styles of agency function. Agencies could eventually become accustomed to occasionally selling / buying functions from each other, they could specialize to a degree yet also generalize for versatility and safety. We could end up with “brands” of government, operating colocally and contemporaneously! Again, I’m not enough of a futurist (by far) to see where that could lead, but perhaps just perhaps, people could terminate their contract and funding of one government and transfer their account to another, all without moving or getting a medical checkup, much as people do now with cellphone carriers. Maybe they would get slightly different services, experience a slightly different beaureaucratic culture, and possibly even be subject to different laws! If pulled over for speeding, you would show the officer your card for your govbrand, which has a 5 mph higher limit for a safer driving record. What this would mean is that different types of government would be in competition with each other, trying to serve a target demographic, or trying to be a general moderate for all. They would seem like corporations, but a different type of corporation, much as there are types now: wholesale, service, retail, extraction.
This could be a natural step from the government side just as we have natural steps from the corporate side. Corporations try to get government contracts. Corporations have been becoming stronger than government in many ways. If the future dominant genre is more corporate, then this vision could be a favorable result – government and corporate coopt each other, rather than government weakening to a point of no return, leaving corporate to become a field of robber barons.
So, if you like that scenario and think it is likely… or you think it would lead to apocalypse and are excited by that, then start agitating for distribution choice in a reformed tax code!
P.S. – An interesting question would be, how would laws be legislated in govbrands, and what would be the relevancy of Congress? But, you know, people regularly ask that now already.
Welcome to Balkingpoints Starling. Good Balk – and what could be more global than taxes? ;^)
I have a cousin who leans Libertarian, whom I’ve discussed this very concept of voluntary taxation with. He is more of the belief that taxes should all be voluntary, ala carte, and paid for altruistic reasons.
You become a responsible member of society by paying in to it.
(…welchers to be shamed on the WWW ;^)
Assuming the funds necessary to stave off anarchy can only come from a compulsory system, I countered that maybe some type of ala carte menu of government programs to support, could be offered on mandatory tax rates as you suggest above.
It has one important feature in it, in which I completely agree with Starling; it induces a measure of democracy back into government spending. People would only get the government which they checked the boxes for – not more, not less. It probably makes you an instant participant and advocate in your home nation, not a bystanding whiner or sleepwalker.
So that makes it (potentially…) a quite progressive idea.
Assuming further that you would still need guaranteed levels of funding for things like social safety-net programs, infrastructure and defense – then perhaps Obama should look at offering choice for the increase in rates in the U.S., which will happen when the “Trickle-Down” tax reductions on the upper crust by Bush in 2001, expire.
If you prospered during the Reagan/Bush era – minority that you are – yes, your obligation is going up in 2011. But you can direct the funds. Check as desired;
a) defense
b) safety-net
c) roads
d) police
e) schools
f) waste, fraud, and pork… ;^)
You might also have a system such as the voting on property tax, on the national level. Any expenditures over certain amounts or which benefits just one or two states or provinces, could be put to referendum. Of course then you might have to hear those political commercials nonstop!
Welcome back Pat. Of course any scenario that has taxpayers calling the shots on how their funds are spent would get resisted by politicians. Hard to see how any such system would ever pass since they would have to vote to cede control of it.
But actually politicians should favor it, since it would insulate them from all the criticism they now take over their spending choices. “Hey, it’s not my fault. The voter did it…”
In fact, if you could have government by referendum on everything – and given SSL browser technology & proper checks against system rigging, it should be possible – well, why do we need a Congress or Parliament anymore?
…DirectDemocracy.gov, anyone? ;^)
Brits may well want that direct option to govern themselves. We’ve seen an expenses scandal widespread amongst MP’s (Member of Parliament)
They’ve been caught out using taxes for personal items as for example, in excess of £15,000 for home improvements by both Gerald Kaufman and Margaret Moran. Other abuses pertain to travel and payments to firms they have ownership in.
Some have agreed to repay the expenses whilst others are steadfastly refusing to do so! It has occurred during a Labour government which has clearly grown fat in the britches and not accountable to the working class UK’ers it claims to represent. A link follows on here,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses
That MP situation would make a good Balk in itself Martin – quite a scandal.
Reminds me of the U.S. House of Representatives check-kiting scandal, circa 1992. The Party of the Incumbency, knows no borders apparently…
Interesting tax proposal that I have thought about in the past.
Some of the problems I see in this is that every agency would need to advertise somehow so they would get funded. If you think that media would play a fair hand in this, think again. They have their own agenda to grind and it is not disseminating all useful information.
A large tax payer could manipulate the system to give his company a tax break of all the tax dollars he put in, more if other people are foolish enough to help him out. The idea of government subsidies to me is just a path to corruption and abuse.
Could have wide swings in funding of agencies from year to year due to what is the latest fad in government funding. 42 billion dollars to fund a swamp to protect a un-endangered duck or mosquito because of a brilliant ad campaign may not be such a hot idea in the end as well. Not to say this does not happen with a representative government that we have in many parts of the world now.
I see your point about advertising / media and the presence of corruption. However, I think that a new referendum type system would be incrementally to noticeably better, at least after a painful adjustment period. Reason being, right now everything is bottlenecked and compromised by generalty. Every single issue is binarily decided in advance in a red / blue emotionally tainted grudge match.
But our talents are more realistically understood as specialty. If our government matches that, then our talents can be matched to appropriate issues. People could still be nearly single-issue voters, but now their power could be communicated with more accountability and precision in the agencies.
The reason I say this is – look at media now. We bemoan the corruption, but there is actually plenty of quality as well. Pop magazines and radio are crap, but they are the fast food, and serve generalty. However, books and niche magazines show higher quality and specialty, and the authors’ success relies upon not disappointing the expectation of accuracy by their specialty readership. It’s similar with institutions. Institutions studying glacier science, for instance, don’t want to ruin their reputation and lose supporters by making a claim earlier than they are absolutely sure, even if they really think they have found million-year-old ice in tropical-latitude mountain ice domes. They are not playing to the generalty, so they don’t try to please fundies who don’t believe anything is over 10k years old anyway. They are just careful not to become legitimate targets for critique of accuracy, thereby maintaining and gaining subscribers in the long term. In specialty, it is about quality and long-term vision. In generalty, it is about the short-term bottom line. If our voting power is more connected to specialty and less diluted by generalty, then the quality goes up. I think that is what agency referendum would do. If there is a bunch of agencies that someone is ignorant / suspicious of, they are free to deny all funding to them, leaving the support to those who are passionate. The harm is less than if they were forced to deliberately vote against them by consequence of voting for the other of 2 binary choices.
Ultimately, let’s not forget, we are the leader. Magazines and politicians are simply serving our demand. Some of them are motivated to try to convince us into ignorance, but at the end of the day it is our responsibility to vote responsibly. In a complex world, there are easier ways, and there are harder ways, to expect that kind of responsibility. There are plenty of issues that I am ignorant of. But my ignorance may be only as consequential as the choices I am denied.
As an aside… to the degree that our political power is privatizing (partly due to red defunding!) then it becomes even more important how we vote every day – with our pocketbook! Well, it’s not yet structured to make really good use of that yet, but for a look at what the future might hold, look at the organic food movement. Here is a whole movement of people paying MORE for a product because they care about quality, and they did it in spite of advertising, legislation, and basic availability. But their incentives were as subtle as the future of the environment and their health. And now, all of the government, private industry, and the media, are having to acknowledge and follow THEM! Imagine how much better, or how many more issues, could be improved by adjusting the power structure to favor our specialty leadership even more!