Community Government

Everytime I fill out my taxes, I'm reminded how many levels of government we have, and what they want from me, as well as what I want from them.

It's a power struggle between city governments, state, county, federal, etc. They all feel that they have the right to collect the majority of the taxes and then redistribute it to the other levels of government.

Right now, the majority of my tax dollars go to the federal government. Then they redistribute it to the states, and the states give money to counties, cities, etc.

I think this is backwards. I think the major force of government should be at the community level. In a small town, it should be the town council. In a big city, it should be the neighborhood. Maximum of 1,000 people, let's say. The community government should collect all the taxes and then redistribute to the cities, counties, states and federal.

Here's why. Corruption in government always occurs, no matter what level. One look at the Bush administration and you can easily see this. However, it's easier to do corrupt things with people's money if you never have to see them face-to-face. Much, much more difficult.

In order to have a government where the citizens can easily see their government officials face-to-face, we need government at the level of 1,000 to 1 or less.

I also feel this helps with complexity problems. When problems are too big, one person cannot comprehend them in his or her brain. And it doesn't take much for a problem to be "too big to completely comprehend." All environmental problems, poverty, racism - these problems seem to be too complex for us to solve at our current level of thinking.

The Internet could serve as a useful tool to connect these many communities and share information.

Am I saying that we should disband the federal government in favor of community governments? No, I am not. But I think those lower levels should be the tax collectors and that the states and federal governments should be recipients of tax money from the communities, not vice-versa.