The Tax You Love to Pay (standard:Editorials, 1853 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Jul 31 2007	Views/Reads: 3427/2249	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Suppose you could choose precisely where each and every penny of your sales tax goes, and specify how it is to be spent. Well, now you can!

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vote has now approved a budget sufficient for repair of the streets."  
And so on. 

The same kind of thing happens at the state level, the national level,
the international level.  If an issue is particularly unpopular, a 
predetermined statute of limitations will run out, and the funds 
partially collected will go to a "Pending" fund.  Proponents of the 
issue may petition for its continuance, or (if there is real lack of 
interest) the item may be permanently dropped from receipt backs and 
the amount collected go into a general fund. 

How do issues get onto receipt backs, anyway?  That's easier than you
think. Instead of having local, state, national and international 
governments, anyone can pick up a simple, machine-readable form and put 
on it a request to include an issue. The machine-readable form goes 
into the collection box, right along with the receipts, and when it is 
read, the message is transmitted to an agenda, in a decision-making 
office with legal authority where a clerk-specialist determines which 
kind of agency should give consideration or study to the issue.  If it 
involves fixing potholes, the petition would be sent to local, county, 
state or national offices, where it would be "accepted" as part of the 
work schedule, or "rejected" as not applying to that office. Once a 
petition has been accepted, an electronic file is opened for it, a 
clerk assigns a statute of limitations, and an estimator assigns a 
figure to be budgeted for the job.  This file is then "registered" with 
the local (or state, or national) node of the electronic network, and 
will immediately begin to appear on the backs of receipt rolls printed 
at the Post Office.  Now, when you purchase goods or services and get a 
receipt, you can indicate whether funding should go for that project. 

The system is both self-supporting and self-limiting.  If not enough
people or machines are working to get effective response to the public, 
more and more requests (and funding) will appear to support the system, 
hire clerks and decision makers, and improve service.  Whenever 
excessive funds begin to accumulate in the "general fund", only 
individuals of the general public have the authority to decide where 
those funds are spent -- the decision is no longer left to mayors and 
patronage systems, governors and elected officials. Since the system is 
largely automatic and in the hands of buyers and sellers in an economy 
(every economy has buyers and sellers -- China, the Soviet Union, South 
Africa, Mexico, Canada) the following branches of government will no 
longer be needed, and eventually will disappear for lack of support: 

A. Country leaders, their cabinets, ministries, congresses and advisors 

B. Military leaders, troops and suppliers of weapons 

C. Revenue services, tax collection agencies, accountants and others who
thrive on the recirculation of monies without contributing to increases 
in human value. 

The system suggested, with modifications as needed to function on a
worldwide scale, will reduce the burden of government from most of the 
population in most countries, reduce the availability of funds for 
supporting non-productive segments of the population, and enable more 
effective and immediate popular support for issues which are actually 
desired by the residents of a district, citizens of a country, etc.  It 
will eliminate the root of all sources of conflict, since the most 
disgruntled individual can create an issue and rally support for it in 
a matter of hours or days, and literally change the world without 
resorting to power struggles, hostilities, complex voting systems, etc. 


With the system indicated, it should be possible to "govern" a
population of 100,000,000 people with -- at most -- 500,000 
individuals, all at relatively low decision making levels.  This would 
relieve people in every country of the world from their burden of 
"beggar's taxes" and improve the productivity of peoples everywhere by 
20 to 35%. 

Advertise in classified as "Strategy for a Lifetime Tax-Free Income --
Details $5.00" or something like that.  When inquiries come in, send 
this paper.  The objective, of course, is to enable the tax to take 
place at the point where it limits the wanton consumption of natural 
resources.  If the tax on an item is high enough, many people will cut 
back on its use.  If the suppliers of this product object, put their 
case to a vote on the back of the sales slips. Don't bother the Supreme 
Court. 

In this way, direct participation of each individual in every
transaction made -- without coercion -- is like getting a free lottery 
ticket.  They canuse it or throw it away.  It is no more than an 
opportunity for free speech and freedom of the press.  The status of 
public opinion will thus be enabled in a consistent, uniform manner at 
any point, and throughout the entire country, at all times. 

Once a system of this sort is in action, fewer workers will be needed
for Government, and more workers will become available for productivity 
of essential goods and services. 

This continuous census of public desire will outstrip -- by far -- the
most exhaustive poll-taking employed by governments today.  Decisions 
will be taken out of the hands of public representatives, because the 
statistical record of public demand will be continuously open to 
scrutiny by all and at all times. 

Since government workers simply cannot be let go on a whim, the
reduction in size of government will be reduced little by little, by 
attrition, over several generations.  Certain issues will, of course, 
not be accessible to the public -- where the elected leaders must 
choose a secret strategic policy, such as making war or manipulating 
the economy to prevent an institution from failing -- unless the 
populace has voted to eliminate the institution, in which case the 
government leaders become answerable. 

The particular advantage of this procedure lies in making known actual
local preferences.  So if a particular county wants to prohibit eating 
red rasberries, this need not affect an adjacent county, state, or 
country. 

The repercussions, will, of course, be volcanic.  When the question
turns up whether tax money should be spent in cleaning up a toxic waste 
dump affecting a 3-state area, this will garner sufficient attention to 
quickly raise the necessary funds, since it is no longer a local issue 
but a tri-state (or National) one. 

The advisory boards on each issue -- which would consist essentially of
the existing government and other public agencies -- would have to 
carefully phrase each issue so it will not bias public response in the 
direction of a foregone conclusion.  While fewer people will eventually 
be needed to monitor that sector of the economy, they will have to have 
broader diversification, in order to assess the impact of each issue on 
other sectors, before publishing on the sales slips.  Here is where 
senators and representatives come in: not as voters, but as counselors 
and advisors -- essentially the committee-like activities that they 
presently engage in.  Only the result will not be laws, but simply 
authorizing action and allotting funds for goods and services that its 
citizens actually expect good government to provide. 

Seattle, Jan. 1998 

Gerald X. Diamond 


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