but what about the conservtive hippies?

The ones who went to Woodstock, but did not inhale?

Most individuals suck terribly at their personal budgets - what makes you think they would be any better at macroeconomic management?

Your proposal, while novel, would be impossible to implement for a large number of reasons.

A better proposal, perhaps, would be to have a number of referendums (referenda?) where people could veto or affirm spending proposals. This of course would be problematic as well.

Interesting, but unworkable.

We'd end up with 500 billion dollars going to an agency with 1000 employees, and 10 billion dollars going to a department with 20000 employees.

There's a reason why we elect Congress Critters. They are there to make law. We don't have a direct democracy, because it wouldn't work. Too many people are simply too ignorant.

Destroy Social Security
Douglas C. Smyth
44 Schultzville Rd.
Staatsburg, NY 12580
1174 words

A social insurance program that insures everyone regardless of income or social station, regardless of whether the market is up or down, is obviously the thin wedge of Socialism.
Imagine this conversation: Karl Rove tells the President, "You can't attack it directly; it's too popular. We need to try something that'll catch people's imagination. How about offering ownership, and say it's better than renting."
"We could call it private accounts," replies the President, getting excited. "Think of all the money the brokers can make!" He laughs. "Probably get a lot of campaign funds on that one--even if I don't carry New York. And if the whole thing flops with the next bear market, and all the debt we'll have to borrow--"
"You mean, like Argentina, Mr. President? Let's hope it doesn't go that far."
"Oh no, we wouldn't let it go that far. But, at least the people who ought to have money will have more of it--the brokers, that is--and we'll have erased the last vestiges of Socialism. Oh, and I'll be able to hire grannies to take care of the grandkids, since they won't be lolling in front of a TV, everything paid for by Uncle Sam."
An imagined conversation, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if the thinking behind the President's Social Security proposal evolved like this.
Privatization would create a new market for the very rich; the trillions of dollars of private accounts they will manage. It's of a piece with a war that was waged to open up Mideast markets to US corporations and oil to American oil giants, Bush's friends; it's part of the same package as the tax cuts and tax "reforms" that leave much more money in the hands of the very wealthy, Bush's "base." Those tax reforms may give the rest of us enough to go out to dinner one time at a fancy restaurant, but we also get drastic cuts in programs that helped us, we face hiked local taxes and a soaring government deficit, instead of a surplus.
The Social Security proposal is part of a class war, undeclared perhaps, but a war nevertheless, being waged on all those who are not well-off and well-connected.
There was a class as selfish as the one currently in power; it arose in Rome even before the empire and, despite occasional setbacks, it was dominant in 476 C.E. That was the year the last Roman Emperor was overthrown by a barbarian. The wealthy of the time--and they were very wealthy, indeed --allied with the barbarian warlord against the Emperor. Roman Senators (who were the prototypical selfish class) had won the kinds of privileges today's corporate elite are in the process of gaining, but that didn't make them loyal to the Empire. Furthermore, the government was tottering in large part because the riches of the wealthy were out of its reach; the Senators didn't pay much in taxes, but because they monopolized wealth, no one else could afford to pay taxes at all. Really, the Roman Empire died a bankrupt.
The whole thrust of the radical "conservative" revolution today has been towards the creation of just such a selfish class: one that rigs all the rules so that it can gain more power and more wealth at the expense of everyone else. Roman Senators paid only the most symbolic of taxes; our corporate elites salivate at the prospect. Meanwhile, through representatives like George W. and Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay, they get to cut and cut their taxes. They are nearly successful in eliminating the "death tax" that has limited their generational reach until now. When state and local governments transfer the tax burden onto the shoulders of the middle and lower middle classes, in the form of rising sales and property taxes, they ignore it (and can afford to). Income, they imply, shouldn't be taxed, or if it is, it ought only to be wages that are taxable, but not high taxes on high wages, and no tax should be collected from unearned income; unearned income, they claim, is the mother's milk of entrepreneurs.
The one good thing about the payroll tax for Social Security, I'm sure they would argue, is that it doesn't tax "unearned income" and it's a flat tax up to the cap. Its flatness may be why President Bush is even willing (though clearly not eager) to raise the cap on the payroll tax. What's 12% of wages, after all, to the truly rich?
Most unearned income is dividends and capital gains on existing stocks and bonds, however, not wealth that entrepreneurs need to be encouraged to create. Most unearned income goes to those at the top of the income scale, but someone living on a large stock portfolio is not an entrepreneur. The CEO, who earns on average 475 times more than the production line worker in his company, isn't really an entrepreneur either; he is a manager, perhaps a gifted bureaucrat of a large private organization, but not an entrepreneur. CEO's get paid large bonuses for cutting jobs, rarely for creating them. They would just as soon create jobs in Wuhan or Penang, anyway, and destroy jobs in Akron or Detroit and, in fact, the US government has encouraged them to do so. And now, under Bush, they can keep more of their money.
In Fifth Century Rome, the Senators, having won the kinds of privileges our would-be Senators hanker for, made money off public offices, government contracts and business deals only those in the know would hear about. Their dealings make one think of Halliburton and Enron. But the Senators closed their estates to the tax collectors, who had less power than they did.
Of course there was nothing like Social Security in 476 C.E., so, when the regime fell the common people starved, but then they had been starving, or disappearing in droves ever since the Empire began losing control of its African provinces and the grain imported from them. The Empire lost control because it couldn't afford to defend them; it couldn't pay for enough soldiers and sailors. The governor of Africa actually imported the Vandals to provide defense on the cheap; they took over instead.
The Empire had been running tremendous deficits for years and tried to pay for them by coining debased currency since it couldn't raise taxes on the wealthy. Sound familiar?
The wealthy Senators didn't long survive after the Empire fell; even though they joined the winning side. It turns out that their wealth was dependent on the empire, which they hadn't supported in the only meaningful way they could: with their money. Note, CEO's and those of like status: the same could apply to you: all that money you made/are making is only possible because you live in a safe society and world, where trade is protected. But you get what you pay for: after the fall of Rome, what followed were waves of invaders, the complete breakdown of trade, and of order, conditions that are not kind to large concentrations of wealth.
It looks to me as if we're starting down that road again. The selfish class should rethink their politics--and we shouldn't accept their agenda, such as re-forming the tax code more to their liking, and privatizing Social Security.
This is class war, and we shouldn't be afraid to point that out, or the selfish class will prevail, and ultimately we all will lose.

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Douglas C. Smyth has a Ph.D. from Syracuse University (1972) in Political Science, Economics and Anthropology. He has written for Columbia Encyclopedia, Facts on File and Grolier's online Journal, as well as newsletters, and business magazines. He has published scholarly articles in academic publications and fiction in literary journals. He has also written three historical novels set in the 5th Century.

Prof. Smyth, you're passion is noted. But your rhetoric reveals you. Divide and conquer, sir, has become the name of the game. You're not arguing policy and ideas so much as you are arguing politics. I don't want that, I refuse to sink to that level. This isn't a class war, it's a common sense war.