My Letter to the President

Today I did something I have never done before: I wrote a letter to the President of my country. Why did I do something seemingly so pointless, knowing full well under normal circumstances that it's unlikely to ever be read by anyone, much less taken seriously? Because these, I feel, aren't normal circumstances. I actually believe, somehow, that there's a chance someone at the White House might listen to me. I know, right?!? "That's crazy talk", you say. Well, probably. But I'm doing it anyway, They remade whitehouse.gov in Drupal after all, and that's certainly awesome, and a sign of business NOT as usual. SO here goes, my letter to the President:

"Dear President Obama,

I have had this idea for a very long time but haven’t known how to really make it happen. It’s a huge project, and I imagine a partner like a bipartisan version of MoveOn.org would be needed, but how much more powerful would it be if it were you? My idea is this:

The Federal Income Tax is illegally implemented in this country. It is an unapportioned tax, which is precisely the kind of taxation against which we fought the Revolution, and as a 10th generation Native Texan this sort of thing is very upsetting. As a tax that goes for purposes not directly approved by the people, and as such violates our Constitution, I want to change this. Somehow. It’s been a dream of mine for over 20 years to do so, and I think I’ve found a way: a grassroots social networking site that does in theory what I want to happen in fact.

In essence, it’s like a big game: a user makes an account, and in this (as anonymous as they want it to be) account they enter in the amount of money they paid (or are paying) in income tax for the last however long they wish. Then they “vote” with their money. The user picks from a list of say 10 items (I want this list to correspond to the top-level categories in the national Federal budget – Defense, Healthcare, Education, Energy and Environment, Law Enforcement, etc. PLUS an option to “spend as Congress sees fit" – the current model), and assigns percentages to each category to which they want their money to be assigned, with the total coming to 100%. They do this for each year they entered their tax figures, and the beautiful thing is that the data they produce can be used to run all kinds of “what-if” scenarios in which the will of the people is directly expressed in our national fiscal will – the Budget. It makes Income Tax legal, and would ideally, in extended development, include all the states that have unapportioned income taxes as well.

If this game could grow into significant numbers, we could actually see what might happen if we were able to have a direct voice as citizens in the actions our government takes, and hopefully make it happen in actuality. I really want this to happen in my lifetime. Very badly. I would love it if you guys were interested enough to perhaps help me make it happen.

I build web sites for a living, and have done so for many years. I have good ideas on how to execute this project. Let the people speak, for real. Are you with me?

I would greatly appreciate any comments.

Kelly Bell

Digital Strategist/Futurist, Musician, Web Designer and Developer, mother of three, taxpayer, independent businesswoman and Obama supporter

Twitter: kelly

LinkedIn: kellybell

PS I contacted Senator Lloyd Doggett about this idea several years ago, but received no serious response."

So we'll see. I can envision exactly how to build this thing - both in its early stage, as a social networking experiment, and as a "real" site, integrated with our taxation system and allowing us to REALLY vote with our dollars. I wanna build it! How awesome would that be?

Cheers,

Kelly