[tarmon]

I'm just imagining government agencies running pledge drives for three months out of the year.

In this system how would we manage a situation where some organizations are over funded to a drastic degree (though who decides that?) and other vital services (and who decides what is vital?) are underfunded? I'm not convinced that the American people could come together and vote with our wallets in a way that results in a balanced budget.

Edit: I shouldn't have specified American, I'm sure plenty of countries would struggle with this :)

[tediousdemise]

Pledge drives, wow... that really puts things into perspective for me.

It's a tragedy that an invaluable public resource like Wikipedia is forced to do pledge drives, while at the same time, the government spends trillions on defense against the better wishes of practically the entire population.

I think I'd be comfortable giving the people some financial autonomy to try to change such a messed up situation. After all, you can't truly say that something works until you test it out.