Forum Post: How to regain control of government

The problem with the government is that the working people have lost control of it. It has grown out of control providing services that are not wanted or needed particularly by the middle class. Money is wasted fighting pointless wars, lining the pockets of dishonest Wall Street tycoons.

The problem with government is the consumer (the citizens of the united states) has no ability to control how much we pay for the services that our government provides to us. The government has the power to tax its citizens so we must pay for the services whether we want or need them. This leads to unlimited and uncontrolled expansion to the point where the system is on the verge of collapse, which is where we are now.

Since the desire to expand is a fundamental human factor it will not matter who we elect to run our government. All politicians will say that they will control spending but once that they are office the only way that they can achieve personal growth is to expand and spend more. In most cases these politicians are not "evil" they are just being human.

The solution to this problem

Fortunately the solution to the problem is simple. The people paying the taxes need to have some control over how much we pay. We need to be able to say "we don't want these services and we are not going to pay for them". A mechanism needs to be added to make the government accountable for its actions so they to provide the services that we want and need.

Here is a simple mechanism to allow this control. An additional page will be added to every Americans tax return. This page will have the following check boxes.

Overall Expenditures: [ ] Expand 2% [ ] Keep the Same [ ] Reduce 2%

Departments: Defense [ ] Expand 2% [ ] Keep the Same [ ] Reduce 2%

Infrastructure (FDA, FAA, etc) [ ] Expand 2% [ ] Keep the Same [ ] Reduce 2%

Charitable services (Welfare, AFDC etc) [ ] Expand 2% [ ] Keep the Same [ ] Reduce 2%

--Other categories will be added.--

In the decision process each persons vote is weighted by how much total tax they pay to the federal government. This would leave the decision largely to the working middle class that pays the bulk of the tax burden. The counting of these votes should be done be an independent highly transparent public company.

The government will set its total budget to match the Overall Expenditure figure. The amount spent in each area is adjusted to meet the overall expenditure and the selections in the individual categories. (An additional factor for inflation will likely need to be included).

The starting values would be from the 2012 tax year. The amount of change each year needs to be fairly small to allow the government a level of predictability in its income stream. Large fluctuations would lead to excessive hiring/firing etc and would be counter productive.

State and local budgets would not be effected but a similar process could be developed for them as well. Note that our most critical services Police, Fire, roads and education are funded and managed at the state and local levels.

Getting this Done 12/12/12 12:00

No politician is going to approve of this idea. It needs to be forced upon them. The way to do this is for all the working people to demand that his be done or else we will stop paying our taxes completely. The government can punish a few citizens for not paying taxes. But if just 1% of use refuse to pay (that's over 1,000,000 people) what are they going to do?

Wednesday, December 12, 2012 will be designated the "Day of Accountability". If this new system is not implemented by that day then at 12 noon every working American should go to his or her employer and DEMAND that NO FEDERAL TAXES BE WITHHELD FROM THEIR INCOME. If they won't do it just file a new form W4 but put 50 as the number of exemptions claimed in box 5.

Citizen12

GoVERnment Accountability MovEment -- GAME oVER --