Would something like this give power back to the people?

I feel that the people do not have much say on what happens in our government. Many times special interests hijack our politicians for their own selfish means.

I have been thinking about this and how to give power back to the people. We have rights to demonstrate and to vote in order to change things in our government. It seems to me that these things do not carry much weight and you see the same things happening in washington over and over again.

One way I thought of how people can be empowered again is this.

We all have to pay taxes , we cannot get out of that, it just a given. Death and taxes. I pay roughly 30+% of my paycheck in taxes. Now our government decides what to do with these taxes. All we do is pay them. These taxes go into all sorts of programs. Some we like and some we do not like
Now how about we allow the people decide where our taxes are allocated. What I thought of, which is probably not new maybe others have thought of this, is to create a system where you log in and based on your income they calculate how much in taxes you need to pay from your income. Lets say for conversation you will pay 20% of your income will go to taxes. How about you are able to decide where your money goes. 1% here 2 % there .25% in another area. This way it gives you more control and it gets rid of forcing people to do things they do not want to do. You do not want to pay for public education but you want to spend more on military?? Okay move that .5% you have in public education and move it over to the military budget. You do not want to support welfare?? Okay move your contributions to some area you want to support.

This would weed out all the government programs that the people truly do not want. Our government could continue to propose vote and pass new programs and taxes but the people have a say on whether or not they want to do it. Heck make it so you can show your disapproval and approval of your rep by being able to adjust their pay. They are public servants are they not.

I think that being able to control ones monetary contribution would give people power. Right now all we get to do is express our popular opinion and that really does not seem to hold much weight. What does hold weight is money. It is a half baked Idea I thought of while working… I planned to put more thought into it and flesh it out when I got home tonight but I would probably forget all about it by then..

Would this be feasible?? I think it would require more education of the public but that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

reply to post by votan
It would never work for the same reason that earmarking donations doesn't. Some fairly unnecessary programs would end up entirely over-funded, some vital ones entirely under-funded, and waste (and possibly hilarity) would ensue.

In theory, it's a lovely concept - one I've considered before myself. But there would definitely have to be logistics hammered out and administration issues addressed. Resolve those in some reasonable fashion, however, and I could find myself supporting the idea, at least in concept.

Given the historical blundering of our bureaucrats, red tape, and the like though...I don't know if you could ever make the damned thing work.

reply to post by votan


Unfortunately even if this happened it would just be to satisfy the public by making us think we have a say and the tax dollars would still go to whatever the govermnet wanted.

reply to post by votan


Great ideas, but I think we need to concentrate more on gathering up those in power who purposely put us in the position we are in and lead them up to the gallows!

This isn't by accident that these things have happened. It has been very well planned by the power mongers that we look up to as our leaders.

Are they going to admit they did this?

Are they going to give up their authority and power over us?

At this point everything that may be suggested or done to help, will fall on deaf ears. Global enslavement is part of their plan, and the only way to stop it is for the vast amount of people in this world to take these scumbags out of power and government and to make sure they can NEVER do this again.....

reply to post by seeker1963


hi seeker

i have been saying the same for years, everyone get of your backsides...then again..

it didnt do the french much good

1 MILLION french march to paris 1968
en.wikipedia.org...

1 MILLION french strikers march to paris 2010
www.english.rfi.fr...

i honestly thought at one point enough peeps would make a huge difference...

reply to post by davesmart

hi seeker

i have been saying the same for years, everyone get of your backsides...then again..

it didnt do the french much good

1 MILLION french march to paris 1968
en.wikipedia.org...

1 MILLION french strikers march to paris 2010
www.english.rfi.fr...

i honestly thought at one point enough peeps would make a huge difference...

Your right my friend! We have allowed ourselves to be put into a very sad situation. Those in charge won't give up their power, no matter what! So what option does that leave us? Option 1, bow down to them and allow them to murder us at their will or Option 2, rise up and fight against them?

Either way, it isn't going to be a very pretty situation, but I would rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.....

i love the fact that you are trying to come up with solutions! that nice to see members that arent so cynical.
and thats what make us all amazing
after all the wars, freedom and rights being shredded to bits, big brother basically has us pined and food we eat is at times stuff wild animals would turn away.
But we still keep trying...
bravo OP, athou the idea would likely get abused and might not nessacarly work for evrybody
you have the hart to keep trying
you inspired me today thank you.

reply to post by seeker1963


agreed seeker

What scares me the most is..
providing everything runs to a relative norm, we will get old
then what happens?
everything we worked and saved for is for nothing. Eg: many elderly with little family have to pool
in their lives savings just to be looked after...
I m so glad i took in what my elders were saying yrs ago
and it also makes me sick to know they (ww2) died for nothing.

it is complexed for we are all to be in the same boat without even realizing

reply to post by votan


No pretty much for the reasons Praetorius ( yes that is right something im not arguing with you over) stated. If you really want to put the power back in the citizens hands in my view you only need to do a couple things.

First you publicly fund elections. You set the requirements to qualify for the funds like so many signatures on a petition. You remove the private money entirely, if a citizen wants to donate more funds to the public fund they can but it will just be divided equally among all those running. This will also help to make the smaller parties more competitive. Ron Paul could afford to run third party if he wanted because he would get the same amount of funds the Democrats and Republicans got.

Second you set a gate that keeps those in public service from going into lobbying positions for a reasonable amount of time. This helps to keep regulators from creating loopholes in regulation and using that knowledge to get the big payday.

Third you increase the number of Representatives in the House. We haven't had an increase in about 100 years, we are due. The House was always intended to function as the peoples voice making the Representatives accountable to a smaller number of people increases the peoples voice.