If you are familiar with the website Kickstarter then you have seen the future of funding for digital media. You may have not realized but you also are seeing the evolution of representative democracy. In keeping with the tradition of the open-sourced, freedom of knowledge paradigm shift, my proposal is malleable, improvable, and most importantly empowering. The views expressed are my own and are not necessarily mutually inclusive to the modernizing of our republic, please don’t shut down if our views diverge. This is intended to be a forum for open, honest dialogue. So be free to say what you are thinking.
The Proposal: The gradual integration of internet-based governance into our system of representative democracy—shifting the power of the purse (revenue allocation) to the taxpayer or "Democratic Budgeting"
Background: This idea came from the thought: how would the founding fathers have used the internet? We know what Benjamin Franklin would have been doing with the internet, I think it is also safe to say they would have incorporated it into their fledgling government. So the question becomes, not if they would they have used the internet, but how? I have come up with three options, one of which I feel is viable for a federal or state government.
Initiating a pure democracy with referendum voting on every issue using the internet is one possibility, but this prospect suffers from the downfalls found with pure democracies (on a federal level); namely it lacks practicality—it would be extremely taxing in both time and intellectual ability, and would result in mob rule. I do feel this model holds merit in small municipalities and should be pursued, keeping in mind the tendency for minorities’ rights to be infringed with this style of governance.
The second option, on the other side of the spectrum is our current system, where internet is primarily used to purchase campaign tee-shirts and spam congressional interns (trust me I was one). This is an unacceptable option.
The third option, which I feel holds more promise is the aforementioned tax-payer allocation of federal revenue to programs they support. Henceforth, this model will be referred as internet-based public finance.
To understand how something like democratic budgeting would work and what issues it would address, let’s look at the current system and its pitfalls. In our present system of governance, we elect representatives to Congress who are responsible for drafting laws and creating a budget for the government. To ‘assist’ in these decisions, lobbyists, acting as proxies for groups of individuals and businesses, attempt to sway votes and spending allocation into their areas of interest. As a result we have a system inherently subject to perversion by special interests and, even at its best, we can only hope for a near approximation of the will of the people.
In the proposed system, lobbyists will still exist but the power they can hope to exert will be greatly diminished, as they will not have anyone to bribe, hand out favors, or trade political capital with. Instead they will be forced to rely on media campaigns to portray the need or lack there of for certain programs. Furthermore, by granting the power of allocating resources to the taxpayer, it will create competition by incentivizing government departments to reach out to the people and report on their needs and accomplishments. This would hopefully mitigate or counteract the influence of lobbyists. This arrangement is doubly advantageous because it also incorporates a level of much needed transparency into the process. As time progresses, people will be more keenly aware if departments have fulfilled their promises and will expect deliverables at each round of voting to justify their budgets. This added level of transparency would effectively give people a sense of ownership of the programs they support and will result in a more active and well-informed populace. As an aside, those concerned with the unchecked power of advertising and its implications in such a proposal, I recommend you check out my thoughts on consumer governance, which essentially takes this idea of internet-based governance and applies it to marketing.
In this trade of responsibilities, Congress still has a role to play in addition to drafting and voting on legislation. As I see it Congress would have three primary functions. First it would set the agenda by determining what departments or programs would be available to receive funding. Second they would be responsible for guiding their constituents to allocate money responsibly and identify particular areas of need that are being met. Intuitively I feel this system makes more sense than having 700,000 people trying to reach out and guide one representative. A congressman would change hats from CEO to team captain. Lastly congressmen would be responsible for allocating the money that constituents failed to allocate within the chosen time period.
Structure of Democratic Budgeting: Taxpayers will be randomly placed in four groups that are responsible for setting the budget per their assigned quarter. For instance, group 1 would set the first quarter budget and group 2, the second quarter and so on. Initially I thought it made most sense to have equally sized groups but it may be more advantageous for the governmental departments to have a general understanding of what their budget will be for the year. This would require frontloading the first group so that something like 79% of the populace, equaling 79% budget, allocates the first quarter and 7% for each of the remaining quarters. Having different groups is important because it ensures constant transparency through monitoring and evaluation as well as minimizes the chances that a single event, such as a catastrophic terrorist attack, would result in undesirable reactionary allocation. On the other hand, if a disaster occurs that requires unexpected funding, such as a natural disaster the budget for the following quarter could change to meet the need.
There would be a period of several days or weeks for the taxpayer to allocate the tax dollars. Each taxpayer, regardless of the actual amount of taxes he/she pays would be allotted a certain dollar amount that would equal the total revenue of the government divided by number of taxpayers. This is important for several reasons. It is most equitable. It also makes people keenly aware of how much more (or less) they are paying in taxes than the average taxpayer. Again this works to give ownership in that when the number value is explicitly shown the tax-payer will have some expectations of what that dollar amount should translate into in terms of services. While there are issues of fairness that arise in not being able to allocate the exact amount of tax dollars one contributes to the government, pragmatically it is superior because instead of creating minimum budget levels for departments, which can be prone to perversion by political interest, it would be up to supporters of programs to ensure they are funded. For example an extremely wealthy person may not value a welfare program as much as someone who has been on welfare or knows people who have been on it.
To allocate tax dollars to the government programs, a taxpayer will log onto the website and see the large categories and departments and to what extend they have been funded in relation to their proposed budget. This is constantly being updated as people allocate their taxes. For those who want more control in the distribution of funds, there will be an option to drill down on a department and selectively choose which programs you feel should or should not be funded. As you allocate your funds you will the see the change in the balance of your directable funds.
This the basic outline of Democratic Budgeting. Different rules and provisions can be created to address specific issues including congressional rules and proceedings such as a referendum on instilling much needed term-limits in the House of Representatives. Additionally this model can be utilized in different ways, ranging from replacing governmental duties with private businesses receiving public financing to adopting single-payer healthcare like the rest of the developed world. It can also be adopted to address issues of specific populations such as people without access to internet or knowledge on how to use it. You could also have a supplemental telephone system.
Implementation: It unlikely that a radical departure from business as usual will be adopted in Washington DC without demonstrated popular support and proven efficacy. Sometimes even this is not enough to create change at the federal level (think single-payer healthcare). If this proposal is to gain traction and become reality it would require two things: one, it would need to be demonstrated to be safe, effective, and easy – essentially it needs a track record of being doable. Secondly it needs to be de-politicized. The concept of internet-based governance is a very adaptable tool and not a one size fits all solution. It should be tested all over the country, with each area adding its flavor and value to the model. This will work to demonstrate the model’s value from many different perspectives, while weeding out versions that do not work and establishing best practices.
If both the political left and right (neither of which actually exist) can feel ownership of such a process, the model can ameliorate up the governance hierarchy from municipality, to county, to state, finally to federal.
So what should you do?
Give feedback. Write op-eds, discuss it on social networking and news websites, talk about it over beer, and make videos. Educate yourself on the open-sourcing movement and see how websites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo are changing finance. Get involved, run for local government on a platform of Democratic Budgeting, create meet-ups, be creative.
Another election cycle is quickly approaching and as usual our CEO hopefuls will be sadly short-sighted. They will debate furiously over red herring issues and the ‘important’ decisions will continue to be made by corporate owned think-tanks. Use this as an opportunity to propose a systematic solution rather than Band-Aids.
Written by an American
