A Receipt for Taxpayers
Via Ezra Klein, Third Way has a great proposal (PDF) for an itemized receipt to go along with each taxpayers’ return:
Third Way writes, “An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention addressing a host of economic and social problems. We suggest that everyone who files a tax return receive a [receipt].”
Giving people information like this tends have little effect (c.f. what happened when New York required calorie information to be posted on chain restaurants’ menus). Nevertheless, it is a good idea and might help at least some Americans understand that to really cut the budget, the United States needs to cut entitlements. Most Americans want to balance the budget with cuts to things like foreign aid — which in Third Way’s example costs only $46 for the taxpayer. Medicare alone eats up $625.
