Your tax dollars at work

I'm actually o.k. with some agency of the Federal Government collecting data on the weather. I would voluntarily donate $1 every year to fund such an agency. Imagine what would happen if we were able to vote on every line item in the Federal budget, assuming there is one some day.

It would be fun to plot these data, from NOAA-- and agency that does far too much.

Think about it for a minute. This is what counts as income [insert short list: wages & compensation (not tips), rent you are paid, profit from sale of a product you produce or service you provide, interest on investments, etc.]. Add them up. Multiply by 0.10. This is what you owe the Federal Government for executing only Constitutionally mandated jobs. What follows is a list of Constitutionally Legitimate entities of the Federal Government. Please indicate, in whole cents, to which entities your payment should be allotted. The amounts must sum to at least the total you owe. If the sum is greater than what you owe, please include a check for the overage. Thanks!

Wouldn't that be a kicker? You like the EPA? Give it your all. What's given to the EPA by the Citizens will be what the EPA has to work with next year. Think your Senator deserves a pay cut? Give him one. 

If I were to give $1 to an agency that collected, and made public, data on the weather, I would  insist that the folks working at the agency and doing the reporting report medians, not averages. You cannot average a date. It just don't make no sense. See? That's how to make folks accountable. Pay them and expect them to do a good job.

Of course, we'd have to look into the legitimacy of this agency-- and a lot of others.