jj@rabbit.UUCP (11/20/83)
The way I understood it, the idea was to allow each person to earmark a certain amount of THEIR OWN INCOME TAX to various parts of government, and to pay the rest into a fund that was allocated to congress for the usual unwise wasting. The idea of letting each person earmark a percentage, etc, as a part of a voting process seem to violate the rulings against head taxes. Once again, you get a tax form, it's just like the one you get now, except on the last 5 pages it lists all the spending parts of the government. You enter either a percentage or a dollar amount in each one, and that's their budget, as far as you are concerned. Since some things have to be funded despite the fact they are both unpopular and unwise (debt service being the one that comes to mind) it would be necessary to allow the congress some money to waste. A Constitutional amendment prohibiting deficit spending is a must in such a system, otherwise the congress will continue it's usual lack of reponsibility. By the way- How much of the current budget deficit would be eliminated if the US had no debt service? In percentage. (Control systems people and mathmatical types please take note of this fraction. <stability criterion foremost.>) -- (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!rabbit!jj