We could have a modest percentage of the budget, say 20%, allocated as follows. Let organizations produce their own federal budgets. Let taxpayers name an organization on their returns. If an organization gets named by at least a million taxpayers, its budget allocates a proportionate part of that 20%.

Well, those numbers come a little too close to actually adding up, to really represent the typical swing voter. And they actually have some connection to reality, because I used actual numbers for part of it, to get a numerical representation of what the swing voter verbally supports. Nonetheless, you get the idea.

It would be a fascinating study.. Maybe get some small town in Podunk, Kentucky and do an experiment...

Logistically speaking, it probably wouldn't be that hard..

Michale....

I apologize for being mostly-absent here in the comments, I am pushing to finish up the book proposal in the next few weeks with every spare moment.

But I do still read everyone's comments.

For those commenting on the "will it work" aspect here, a simple question: wouldn't it be interesting to do such a study and find out how the American people would divvy up their tax money? Purely academic, some poly-sci grad student, I mean.

And the $64,000 question: what would the results look like? The more I ponder that question, the less certain of any answers I come up with, personally...

-CW

Sorry.. I was mixing up Slick's idea with Paula's...

My bust....

Michale.....

I would submit that such things are possible under VERY limited circumstances..

Can you imagine if this Scandinavian country came under attack and put it to their people as to how they should respond?? Two years later the populace is ready to fight.. Too bad that the conflict was already over after the first two hours..

You simply cannot run a country by committee... You simply MUST have elected representatives to make decisions for us.

The problem we Americans have is that we're always suckered by Shiny Beads and Shallow Flattery that we keep electing over and over the worst our country has to offer..

Obama is a perfect example. America was breathless that we finally had a REAL leader, a Jack Ryan... Turns out we got a Richard Nixon...

Our problem is, we don't hold our leaders accountable. We mitigate their sins and their greed because WE elected them and we simply cannot admit to ourselves that we might have been wrong.. Or we fool ourselves into thinking that the OTHER guy just HAS to be worse.. So we go on and let our leaders walk all over us, betraying us and our principles at every turn and they are smirking, "What are ya gonna do? Vote against your Party!??" all the way to another term in office...

Slick's concept is a nice fantasy and would work well under very limited, very controlled conditions.

But to actually apply it en masse on a country wide scale?? The country applying it would cease to exist before the ink dried...

Michale.....

I like to think that as humans continue to evolve and advance, someday, somewhere, real, practical "representative" government will occur.

Well, actually, I remember reading an article some years ago about one of the Scandinavian countries - can't recall which - actually has something, to a degree, like what I envision. The crux of the article was that there was some thorny problem that needed addressing, and the "government" conducted basically a 2 year-long (or so) discussion/debate with the citizenry until they reached a genuine consensus. (Shades of Occupy.) The government simply didn't take action until the thing had been thoroughly hashed out and everyone was on board.

Such things are possible and even exist, to an extent, today.

Just not here.