Key takeaways from this chapter

The political parties are the government when they are in power. In addition to putting the people last, fiscal management by the political parties has been a dismal failure. Consider the levels of duplication of governmental programs and agencies, wasteful spending, the annual budget deficit, and the national debt. Policy makers and government administrators are rewarded for spending more money with no incentive to spend less.

Citizen solutions through participatory budgeting

In contrast, the democratic solution process would include a new form of participatory budgeting where spending would be solution-specific, issue by issue, not aggregated into a giant omnibus appropriations bill. Annual budget approval for departments and agencies would not be needed, as budgets would remain constant until increased or decreased through issue solutions.

Until now, all federal spending decisions have been in the hands of a few people who pay no price and are even rewarded for spending more and wasting money. When We The People rule, we will be spending our money, whether it is spent in the form of taxation or inflation.

I believe that many of us would be motivated to optimize government and to eliminate waste and duplication. We would only spend when it benefits us, not the special interests. With the collective knowledge, talent, and intelligence that we possess, I believe we would make wiser and more responsible financial decisions. We could even incentivize Federal Councils to produce savings.

We would decide if deficit spending was wise and the acceptable level of national debt allowed. If the inherited absence of spending controls didn't work, citizens would have to create controls using the democratic solution process.