AOT: Choosing Where Your Taxes Go

 Ok, it's that time of year - Bonus Season - and it brings up a lot of angst for a lot of people.  If you don't get a bonus, you can still relate. 

Every paycheck we get includes the removal of money to taxes.  You notice it more at Bonus Season because of the sheer % they remove which is often higher than your normal tax bracket, but irrespective of your tax bracket, this cool idea popped into my head.

What if you could define how you wanted your tax money allocated?!

Disclaimer - I'm actually pro-taxes.  I like roads and infrastructure.  I'd like to see universal health care and public transportation and a greater sense of humanitarianism and environmentalism.  But even if those aren't your choices, I bet you'll still find this idea worth discussing.

How it would work:  When you sign up for a job (or if you have a job where you don't pay taxes / e.g. you pay your own taxes, etc, then you'd do the selections there) you select the top 3-5 areas you want your taxes to go. 

• Infrastructure (roads, bridges, sidewalks, internet, lighting, etc)
• Education
• Transportation (busses, trains, also bridges, etc) - similar to infrastructure, but with additional other items
• Defense
• Parks & Recreation (environmental protection, parks, public land maintenance)
• Social services
• Healthcare
• Historical restoration and preservation
• ETC

Obviously a portion of your taxes would go to fund the headcount required as well - thinks you can't get out of because in order for government to work, you have to pay people to work in government, but the rest of it (and the bulk of it) would be defined by you.  And it would go in equal parts to those areas.

What does this do? This gives an immediate voice to the working public telling elected officials how they want their money spent.  Now, many of these services would cross (e.g. healthcare and social services and education, infrastructure and transportation, even defense) but the point is we identify how we want our money spent by where we elect our dollars to go.  Then based on how much that particular fund has, they can do things with it.  If 95% of people elect "healthcare", then guess what?  The government now has motive and money to move towards universal healthcare.

Etc.  

Would this upset the balance of power, politics, and capitalism?  100%. But maybe it's time for America to join the rest of the world in taking care of its citizens and for its citizens to start thinking of themselves as global and community participants instead of solo players fighting one another.