h a l f b a k e r yI like this idea, only I think it should be run by the government.
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sp: many people --> republicans |
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I have always wanted a line item break-down of every item on the City budget. |
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It's no use. People wouldn't understand the budget anyway. Meals On Wheels? Who needs that program, what good does it do ME? I wanna buy a big screen TV! |
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I was thinking about [Curry's] line item budget plan. It is only a matter of time. As communication becomes faster, democracy will become more participatory - for good or bad. Politicos talk about cutting waste - the real way to do that is to lay your cards on the table via the internet, and set up a moderator who can explain why each line needs to be the way it is. |
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But I'm in government office! I NEED my $276.00 stapler, $60.49 reams of paper, and $1,249.21 urinal cakes! How do you expect us to work without them? |
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Surely it's all on public record as it is? (There is a bureaucratic delay, of course.) So it's left up to the teachers to implement your idea. Or have I misunderstood? |
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I remeber a nice newspaper article my high school economics teacher shared with our class that had a nice detailed breakdown, complete with pie charts, of the current US budget. |
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Yes [Detly]. The idea is to have the teachers impart knowledge of taxes and the budget (in a somewhat simplified form) to the students. There might also be a little on other countries budgets, past and present, chosen for interest and to provide a contrast. Care would be taken to avoid bias. |
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No doubt the public would complain about the amount being spent by the "budget communication department" and your plan would be foiled. |
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[DrBob], it looks like thats just a budget on a pretty pdf file. For the idea to be baked it would have to be tought in classes. |
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[reensure], this would be a compulsary short course of maybe 3 hours so that everyone understands instead of just macroeconomics studets. (The time could be taken away from religious education, general studies or any other program of that sort. ) |
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[dobtabulous] this would hardly be an expensive project. The people who currently design the curiculum would write a sylabus for the course and the people who write textbooks would produce some leaflets or something (perhapse like [DrBob]'s council's pdf). |
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A wonderful idea, the transparency would result in public outcry. I also think people should not be allowed to prepay taxes or have them deducted from their paychecks. Paying a lump sum at the end of the year would result in public outcry. (refund! indeed!) |
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I'll say it again: The cost would be pretty small. Most schools already teach some kind of general studies or RE course. This would just take a few lessons away from it. |
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The course would be geared towards the age group it was being taught to. It wouldn't go into too much detail (big categories like health, education etc. with a bit of detail about each on the photocopied handouts or whatever). It wouldn't be trying to make economists out of everybody. |
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