Forum Post: Voting with your pocketbook.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 5, 2011, 6:27 p.m. EST by RightsOfMan
(45)
from Brownsville, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I had an idea about a way to shape our government. It's not perfect, and I haven't contemplated all the potential ramifications (perhaps someone else will...I deal best with "broad strokes" not details). Please expand or critique but I think it's promising.
What if we could designate how our tax dollars were spent? Out of 100 dollars I could say that 30 should go to infrastructure, 30 to education, 30 to healthcare, and 10 to everything else. Think there's already too many prisons? Don't allot them money. Want to see more space exploration? Give them a bigger chunk of the pie. No more corporate welfare (at least not with my taxes)? Done.
I wonder if we did this (even experimentally as a survey) how the spending would compare to our actual government spending. Is there anyway to make this work...I don't want to support so many things this country engages in (like wars [drugs, terror, Iraq, Afghan. etc.]).
Could we really vote with our pocketbooks and would that help enforce the desires of the 99%?
To begin with, there are already groups mobilizing to enact change. Anyone who has not already signed the following petitions, please do so:
To get money out of politics: http://www.getmoneyout.com
To repeal corporate "personhood": http://movetoamend.org
To bypass the two-party system, visit: www.americanselect.org
And of you're really serious and go here: http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/
As a reward, you can check out this HOT video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k5kHACjrdEY
What if everyone got a basic income of an equal share of 50% of the US GDP (about $2000 a month per person) and then votes by how they spend it in the market? http://www.basicincome.org/bien/
But I like your idea too. Why not do both?
CA does this by referendum. Have you looked at CA recently? Not a pretty picture.
The message needs to be to elect a 3rd party to fight the government that is bribed. Then changing campaign finance will work. Telling crooks taking bribes to stop is ridiculous. read more -- http://overthecoals.blogspot.com/