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This is an excerpt from Taxation With Representation, written by John Judge in 2001:
Taxes are indeed our money, and therefore we should be allowed to spend them as we see fit. Taxes, if paid by the people, should be directly allocated by the people. Bush appeals to the selfish position of those who do not wish to pay taxes for social services or welfare, but are fine with paying for the military and CIA that protect their wealth, privilege and investments here and abroad. He hands us back a rebate which is little more than chump change after he has taken out the massive ($238 billion) Pentagon budget, the increased CIA budget, and cut the social services once more. What is the average citizen to do with $300? Will it educate the children? Will it pay for health care? Or is it just meant to take the edge off the gouging profits of the rate hike at our gas pumps this year? …
I propose that if we are to pay any tax on income exchanged for labor, it should be directly allocated by each taxpayer to whatever programs they feel are a priority. The net effect of a tax cut and a Pentagon increase has to mean a social services cut in education, health, infrastructure, or assistance. I would propose that the corporations pay a fair share but have no power in its allocation. Once the collective will was clearly expressed by compiling a taxpayers allocation pie, the corporate funds would be allocated proportionately as well, or used to create an emergency backup fund for direct allocation when conditions arose or funds allocated were insufficient to public needs and desires.
My first approach would be to plant the seed of this idea, for which I have found almost universal acceptance among diverse groups of people: implement it without binding the government at first. A simple three-layer carbon form could be mailed to all taxpayers in a given area, along with printed pie charts showing how current taxes are being spent at local, state and national levels. Taxpayers would be invited to fill out their own charts, showing their priorities on the form. One copy would be added to their payments of local, state and federal taxes, enclosed with the tax return. This would indicate their intent and educate them about whose money it is. The second copy would be returned to the public interest group doing the mailings, and they would be complied into several “People’s tax pies” for each municipality, county and state. At a public meeting and press conference, these pies could be compared to the current spending pies based on the allocation voting records of their elected “representatives”. I can guarantee you they would not be the same pies. The elected representatives could be invited to attend and explain who they really represent, or why they feel better qualified to spend the people’s money than the people themselves.
Once the principle was established it would be easy enough to make the last page of any tax form an allocation chart and let the taxpayers allocate the funds. A one-year lag time could be established, to give time for corrections by way of referendum or reallocation of the corporate based emergency funds if needed. This then would truly represent taxation with representation, and our money would be allocated democratically and directly by the people. The current unrepresentative allocation that bloats the coffers of the military-industrial complex and guts the social benefits of this productive economy could be put to use to end poverty, homelessness, miseducation, and many other social ills, as the people might so direct.
I came upon this idea during my college years, when I was forced to pay a $50 “matriculation fee” each trimester, and looked into where it was being spent. A full $28 went for sports and sporting events, which I had no interest in. A meagre $2 went for student government, another $2 for the student newspaper, and a similar amount for cheerleaders at sport events, an ROTC rifle spinning outfit, and a sorority that existed solely to serve the needs of ROTC cadets. My goal was to regain student control over the allocation of these funds, but I started small. I proposed that the $2 student government fee be reduced by the actual costs of the administrative functions, ombudsman and student lawyer, and that the rest be directly allocated by students who would assign 25 cents to each signature on public, numbered petitions for any proposed function or activity. At this point the student congress, which had been in charge of allocating the funds, set up a howl. “Students don’t know how to spend their own money!” they informed us. I then asked exactly who they represented. I am sure that the Congressional and local elected officials would put up a similar hue and cry, and thereby expose their elitist and neo-colonial attitudes towards their constituencies, who they never even consult in making tax allocation decisions.
