[krath94]

I think it really comes down to what roles you assign to each level of government. For example, I think one of the main roles of the federal government is to maintain the military. I think a role of state and local governments is to maintain the infrastructure and education. I'd rather send more tax money to state and local governments, because I'd see the results. A lot of the money that states use to build and maintain their roads comes from the federal government anyway, so why not cut out the middleman and have the taxpayer give it directly to the state.

Obviously there are some places where you will have overlap between the different levels. For example, I don't think the federal government should be completely, 100% out of education, but rather should have a reduced role so the teachers can do their jobs and educate.

Obviously these ideas would be difficult to implement and are also idealistic. For example, some states are poorer than others so their tax revenue may not be enough. But even given that, I think state and local governments having more power would be better for the people. And no, this isn't some states' rights dog whistle or whatever (I doubt any of you would accuse me of that, but people have).

[nekopa]

Good points.

Side note: I am a US citizen, but I live in the Czech Republic at the moment, so I would be interested to see a system which would be flexible enough to allow any government to utilize.

This actually seems like an interesting enough problem that I may try to code up a website where people can anonymously enter how much tax they pay (in currency amounts) and how they would allocate it (in %). Then try to do some aggregates to see how countries would compare.