[EM] Open budget primary

[Michael Allan]

Thanks C,

> Since it is also combinable with our resource accounting, people
> could both determine the global budget and contribute more than the
> vote, but their "taxes" rather directly with their vote in form of
> resources.

I guess the budget vote is a vote for expenditures (i.e. for a program
or service or purchase).  Maybe the RAC pledge would be where the
voter contributes additional revenue as a kind of donation or
(government) "voluntary tax" toward the same expenditure.

You asked on IRC whether additional code might be needed for the
budgeting practice.  Two things I can think of:

 (1) Tool for finance officer to produce budget itself.  He adds
     revenue, debt servicing and other forced expenditures, account
     cancellations, and so forth.  The tool combines these with the
     current results of the budget primary, and produces the official
     budget.

     Maybe candidate finance officers can produce their budgets in
     advance, as part of applying for office in the executive primary.
     Maybe the "opposition" finance officer (out of office) always has
     a shadow budget, as a kind of critique of the gov't.

 (2) Tool to compare official budget with the primary, verifying that
     the wishes of the primary participants are being met, or what the
     discrepencies are exactly.

Probably these two are related, maybe even the same tool.

Mike


conseo said:
> Michael Allan wrote:
> > Here's a rough design for an open budget primary based on transitive
> > delegation: http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/budgeting
> > 
> > It runs in parallel with an open executive primary of similar design.
> > The officers currently nominated in the executive primary maintain
> > accounts for particular programs and services in the budget primary.
> > Each voting participant has a single vote to cast into an account.
> > Together the participants shift these votes to ensure that the most
> > important accounts are sufficiently funded.  When the executive is
> > eventually elected, it comes complete with a primary budget.
> > 
> > Will this work as hoped?  Or is there an obvious flaw?
> 
> I am not sure whether this is close enough to democratically steer the 
> economic process, but it is definitely a well-integrated way to develop a 
> budget. I don't see a direct problem with it and I think it is a very 
> interesting idea which matches the pipe indirection nicely. Good idea!
> 
> Since it is also combinable with our resource accounting, people could both 
> determine the global budget and contribute more than the vote, but their 
> "taxes" rather directly with their vote in form of resources.
> 
> conseo