If we were able to earmark our taxes for programs we approved of, how different would our priorities be, as a nation?

Great question!
I would focus on the environment, and education.

It would be nice to see how people would like their tax money spent, I wonder if their have ever been any real, polls done that weren’t skewed in some way.
@wundayatta, I don’t agree with you that liberals have a bigger love for environmental issues. That isn’t what I see where I live

I wonder if police protection would be more favored by urban dwellers and of course probably farm programs by rural folks.
I can imagine that help for the elderly and infirmed and education would be strong. As well as police, fire and rescue protection. But perhaps that is because those are the priorities where I live.

Corporate farmers would be complaining if it were up to me. So would oil companies and defense contractors. And corn growers would wax nostalgic about the days of ethanol.

National Parks would be full funded, as would National Forest wilderness areas.

And the war on drugs would get nothing.

In general think there would be more support for the elderly because of the lingering traditional values of taking care of your old and infirm but I also believe a bit of that would be because many people don’t want to be responsible for their elders directly and are ok for strangers to pick up the slack even if they have to pay a little more for it.

Programs for foreign aid would probably diminish. So many people feel our own citizens are being neglected in favor of resources being given to those in need around the world. There’s a fine line with upholding a national sense of pride that our country (USA) is the 3rd world’s champion and/or that we miraculously can/should always come through as the leader nation to help everyone else through their disasters and up & downs.

I’ll go with @zenvelo GA too.

I’m willing to bet corporations would have to spend more money convincing people to give them their money indirectly through the government.

I would love to see the budget cut for the military (so they cannot spend us into poverty by buying more & more expensive weaponry) – they might actually have to bring home the rest of the troops that we still have in Iraq & bring home the troops from Afghanistan. I would also like to see tax dollars spent on our infra-structure (streets, highways, & bridges), our national parks need to be supported, & more tax money should be spent on alternative energy sources instead of spending it on big oil (& jobs, jobs need to be created thru tax breaks to companies that will bring mfg. back to the US).

This would bring the ned of the prosperous nation we have known. Most people would earmark everything to get spend on themselves. All investment in educatoin, infrastructure, basic research and such would be starved of funds. This is just one more chapter in the GOspel of Greed. No collective spirit. What’s in it for me?

I agree @ETpro it couldn’t work, but it would be nice to know what really is important to people as opposed to what the skewed polls that we often see tell us.