[Today’s run: nothing yet]
I was wondering why our national government is not more interactive.
One example of good interactive government that I can remember: somewhere around 1998 the potential designs for the Sacagawea dollar coin were made available for public comment. I remember putting in a comment for the design I liked, the same design which eventually was chosen.
Maybe there are other agencies that do internet polling and I have just never run into them.
What I’d really like to see is a tax system which requires that you select which agencies and projects you send your income taxes in for. There would be a big piece taken out for the debt servicing, and maybe some baseline amount which would go to “core” functions. After that you could send the rest to NASA or to the weather service or the CIA or whatever floats your boat. Fixed “formula” allocations could be developed and encouraged by various interest groups. I can imagine that all of the agencies would then have to have their own marketing department to get you to “pick FDA!” on your yearly checkoff.
But that has me wondering about something else. When I give a chunk of change to a charity I can attach conditions about how I want the money spent. If I give a charitable contribution to the government (beyond my tax liability), do I get to pick what they spend it on?