Only in Fantasyland
A popular stance among conservatives is that social services should be funded by charities so that people can choose what services they want to support. They’d like to slash taxes and reduce if not eradicate government spending on like, disability checks. If we were to adopt their desired optional approach to “philanthropy” I think it would only be fair if things like, say, the Star Wars project were also funded out of the goodness of concerned citizen’s hearts. While I agree that some military is a necessary part of any country, I certainly don’t want to pay out the hundreds of millions that we do, a stance that I feel mirrors the conservative idea that some social services are worth funding but not the ones that are, you know, “hand-outs” (like paying for children to learn how to read and see a doctor—stuff like that). I feel the exact same way, except about all the budget areas that they like to give monetary priority. So OK, let’s do this! I can see the telethon fundraisers and radio donation drives now, and let’s not forget everybody’s favorite: charity calls!
Oh wait, there’s this one kind of major problem I just thought of. People are incredibly greedy and short-sighted. Ooooooooh, right. That’s why we have taxes in the first place!
So here’s a better, or at least more intriguing, idea. I wonder what would happen if everyone, when they filled out their W2s, also selected what percentages of the money taken out of their paychecks would go to each department. Each person could control exactly what they were supporting. Obviously some departments (the important but boring and not-in-the-media Department of Housing and Urban Development, Corps of Engineers, National Science Foundation, etc.) would be ignored not because people don’t want to fund them but because most people probably don’t know what they do and they’d rather designate their money towards things they understand. So I suggest a Department of Balance that would take a set percentage not decided upon by individual taxpayers but by an election that would distribute their funds into the departments that needed more than was selected. To be ultra fair, you could choose a sub-department of the DoB that you’d like to have distribute your DoB taxes so you can choose the emphasis of your own spending.
Options could be Maintenance (including the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Education, Justice, the Interior, Transportation, etc., departments that keep our people fed and mostly literate, our streets not crumbling, and so on), Progression (Aeronautics and Space, Science, Small Business, Environment, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, departments that progress our technology, culture, minds, health) and Protection (Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, Veterans Affairs, Environment, Social Security, Education, Health and Human Services, departments that protect us from becoming a third world country).