I wish the process were the other way around. Tell me how much I owe, and let me choose exactly where it's allocated ... old-school Wheel of Fortune style. If all the good-stuff is paid for by the time you go to pay your tax bill, you can just dump it into the pot to cover the rest of things.

I know this will never happen ... not in any granular way, and that it creates all sorts of other problems ... but it might restore the link between what we pay and what it pays for, and at the same time provide a very visible prioritized list of where the public feels their tax dollars should be spent.