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I agree this is a good idea, but history has shown that if there is a pile of money sitting somewhere, governments blow it, just like many states have blown thr

by prirun 5y ago

I agree this is a good idea, but history has shown that if there is a pile of money sitting somewhere, governments blow it, just like many states have blown through public retirement funds. The fundamental problem is that people running governments are spending other people's money and they never have a problem doing that.

voisin 5y ago
Isn't this a problem that the pile of money isn't ring-fenced from the general coffers?
lotsofpulp 5y ago
>The fundamental problem is that people running governments are spending other people's money and they never have a problem doing that. I would go further and state that voters are spending tomorrow's taxpayers' money and they never have a problem doing that. As a politician advocating for paying for things today, you are not going to win elections against someone who promises to push cash flow into the future and lower taxes today. Try replacing taxpayer funded defined benefit pensions (which can be pushed onto taxpayers decades in the future) with purchasing equivalent annuities from an insurance company today (which have to be properly accounted for and paid for today, requiring higher taxes today).
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  > I would go further and state that voters are spending tomorrow's taxpayers' money and they never have a problem doing that. This is what happens to retail politics when the population is trained to think for the short term. After all (successful) politicians merely follow trends.
acdha 5y ago
> The fundamental problem is that people running governments are spending other people's money and they never have a problem doing that. This wording makes that seem passive and that's a key gap in understanding the problem. Almost everyone has high expectations for government services — they want great schools, smooth uncongested roads, safe water, responsive police and fire departments, support for their elderly friends and neighbors, etc. The problem is that fewer people are willing to pay what it takes to actually provide those services, and an entire industry of people misdirecting attention for political reasons — e.g. you'll hear a lot about wasteful spending for stuff which is like 0.1% of the budget but trips someone's political agenda, and they won't mention that you could cut that entire program and it'd fund 2 extra prisoners in jail or a block and a half of street. The other problem is that a lot of our taxes aren't indexed for inflation or have been actively cut. Things like the gas tax used to pay for a higher percentage of road construction, and the massive tax cuts given to rich people have removed a lot of general revenue, and that means that a lot of what was previously covered by that revenue now has to be paid for in ways which are very noticeable to the average voter: property taxes, use fees (as a Californian, the example I use is that the UC system had free tuition until the 1980s — that shifted the cost to the students which made it FAR more noticeable since it went from what you could do with a summer job to the price of a new car annually), etc. All of that tends to mean that a politician who runs on a platform of needing to raise taxes to pay for the things we all use will likely lose to the one saying they can cut the mythical “waste & abuse”, and it has to get bad before that changes.
- kiba 5y ago
  First, we get rid of stuff we don't need. If we don't need roads, we don't need as many cars. As Elon Musk said, the best part is no part. Cars was a luxury that became necessary to live in most places of America. Then, we can talk about raising taxes and funding enough infrastructure. What we cannot do is fund financially inefficient infrastructure.
brewdad 5y ago
If there is a pile of money somewhere, some politicians will choose to cut taxes and "give back" that money for political gain as well. Both are a problem.

by prirun 5y ago

voisin 5y ago

Isn't this a problem that the pile of money isn't ring-fenced from the general coffers?

lotsofpulp 5y ago

>The fundamental problem is that people running governments are spending other people's money and they never have a problem doing that. I would go further and state that voters are spending tomorrow's taxpayers' money and they never have a problem doing that. As a politician advocating for paying for things today, you are not going to win elections against someone who promises to push cash flow into the future and lower taxes today. Try replacing taxpayer funded defined benefit pensions (which can be pushed onto taxpayers decades in the future) with purchasing equivalent annuities from an insurance company today (which have to be properly accounted for and paid for today, requiring higher taxes today).

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
> I would go further and state that voters are spending tomorrow's taxpayers' money and they never have a problem doing that. This is what happens to retail politics when the population is trained to think for the short term. After all (successful) politicians merely follow trends.

acdha 5y ago

> The fundamental problem is that people running governments are spending other people's money and they never have a problem doing that. This wording makes that seem passive and that's a key gap in understanding the problem. Almost everyone has high expectations for government services — they want great schools, smooth uncongested roads, safe water, responsive police and fire departments, support for their elderly friends and neighbors, etc. The problem is that fewer people are willing to pay what it takes to actually provide those services, and an entire industry of people misdirecting attention for political reasons — e.g. you'll hear a lot about wasteful spending for stuff which is like 0.1% of the budget but trips someone's political agenda, and they won't mention that you could cut that entire program and it'd fund 2 extra prisoners in jail or a block and a half of street. The other problem is that a lot of our taxes aren't indexed for inflation or have been actively cut. Things like the gas tax used to pay for a higher percentage of road construction, and the massive tax cuts given to rich people have removed a lot of general revenue, and that means that a lot of what was previously covered by that revenue now has to be paid for in ways which are very noticeable to the average voter: property taxes, use fees (as a Californian, the example I use is that the UC system had free tuition until the 1980s — that shifted the cost to the students which made it FAR more noticeable since it went from what you could do with a summer job to the price of a new car annually), etc. All of that tends to mean that a politician who runs on a platform of needing to raise taxes to pay for the things we all use will likely lose to the one saying they can cut the mythical “waste & abuse”, and it has to get bad before that changes.

kiba 5y ago
First, we get rid of stuff we don't need. If we don't need roads, we don't need as many cars. As Elon Musk said, the best part is no part. Cars was a luxury that became necessary to live in most places of America. Then, we can talk about raising taxes and funding enough infrastructure. What we cannot do is fund financially inefficient infrastructure.

brewdad 5y ago

If there is a pile of money somewhere, some politicians will choose to cut taxes and "give back" that money for political gain as well. Both are a problem.