[djKianoosh]

The majority of these dollars in the US go to military bathwater. Perhaps there may be a way for citizens to earmark their preferences directly for where they feel their tax dollars should go. Yeah yeah go vote of course. But Congress acts too slow. I am talking about a more direct system, maybe with limits sure. But as it is, Congress has a lot of the purse strings, and maybe individual citizens could have more say-so with an improved system.

[ashtonkem]

Earmarking your own dollars for what you support might make you feel better, but it won’t change anything. Money is fungible by design, every dollar of yours that’s earmarked for welfare programs frees up someone else’s for the military.

Sure, if everyone did that it would have an impact, but that seems pretty improbable.

[mushufasa]

This would not be good.

This is essentially what a nonprofit does. Then what ends up funded is what's whimsical. For example, people donate to save cute polar bears instead of saving the ugly worm that fixes the soil problems.

[djKianoosh]

Then maybe not open it up at that fine grain a level. And that's too specific an example anyway, as the budgeting process is way more complex: https://www.usa.gov/budget

So really, the citizens' choice in my example would have be to designate percentages at the top level, say to DoJ, DoD, DHS, etc.

That in and of itself would put a lot of power back in the citizens' hands. Of course, I don't see this happening, but that would be transformative. And we'd see a lot of campaigning/advertising/propaganda from each Department asking for taxpayers to direct their funds to them...

But my original premise was that Congress is gridlocked and if you think they're not serving the citizens' best interests, then this is an alternative from left field.