by Wyatt Atkins

Created on: September 22, 2008   Last Updated: September 23, 2008

Taxpayers' dollars are just that: their dollars. So without further arguments, it should be fairly obvious that they get to say when, how and why their money is being spent. As we all know, however, various branches of government and "public" agencies and organizations are the ones who have taken over the task. To make a long story short, this is what has happened so far: we decided to give power to the people (us!), then formed institutions to protect our rights, and then the institutions got all our rights, and we got a right to vote every 4 years or so. Then the vast majority, disenchanted with what was happening, decided to actually forego voting. Still: nothing happened, but that was no surprise after all.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is that, in my book, if you want to fund project xxx with taxpayers' dollars, you should get a reasonable majority vote on the issue at hand (say 67%, the percentage required for any really important decision by a General Assembly of a public company) from anyone legally residing in the state and actually paying taxes (not just registered voters!). Then, a budget cap should be established for the project by using a similar procedure. Now I'm not really saying things should actually closely follow this demanding and possibly "naive" procedure; I'm just supplying the pyre wood for a decent burial of the way things happen - to date and today.

... but this would mean that for most projects there would be no funding!

Why should we fund project xxx? The usual reason cited is "public interest". We fund a road or a bridge, because we rightly assume it is in the public's best interest to have more and better roads and bridges. And we have more or less established means of judging whether that is also the case for the road/bridge in question. Institution ZZZ assesses the need based on statistical data collected, proccessed and presented in a certain predetermined way, acts in a certain, usually perfectly legal way to get the consent it needs from the various decision-making levels, as dictated by applicable law; and the stage is set. We have a perfectly legal decision to spend your money. You get no say in the matter - you did that when you chose A over B for president, because she/he spoke directly into your heart and shook your hand, or because she/he promised equal pay for equal work or just because you were classmates with him/her in 5th grade.

If we set such or similar standards for funding, a lot less projects would be

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