5 ms·

IMO money is fungible and specifically locking in a tax to fund a specific thing seems like a good way to make the funding available for that thing volatile unl

IMO money is fungible and specifically locking in a tax to fund a specific thing seems like a good way to make the funding available for that thing volatile unless it’s so expensive that no matter what the tax pulls in it will never be enough. I doubt people would actually adjust their fuel consumption to the ideal balance between personal utility and road infrastructure funding.

zie 2y ago
It's very easy to stop funding X from the general fund and using the specific allocated money, so the overall spend on X doesn't increase at all, it's just the money now comes from the special tax, instead of the general fund. The general fund money can then be spent on whatever again, say the mayor's sin habit ;)
- dgfitz 2y ago
  > It's very easy to stop funding X from the general fund Yeah it only takes a cliche called: an act of congress
  - zie 2y ago
    Why do you think that?
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      Doesn't congress need to approve the budget?
      - zie 2y ago
        At the federal level, yes. but that's not related to my point at all. If you've never read the federal budget, it's a great exercise in knowing how the govt operates. I encourage it. If they say spend $100 on toilet paper. It's assumed it comes from the general fund. If they later decide taxing toilet sales for that $100 is a great idea. Awesome. What happens to that $100 budgeted out of the general fund? Sometimes it gets re-allocated, but sometimes not. It almost never means they are suddenly going to start spending $200 on toilet paper though. To do that, they have to specifically write that into the budget. Hence, just because you taxed toilets $100 doesn't mean $100 MORE dollars will get applied to toilet paper. Obviously $100 on TP for the federal government is absurdly low, but that's not the point and I'm too lazy to go figure out the actual costs on toilet paper. I'm sure it's a lot though.
        dgfitz 2y ago
        I’ve read it. I stopped reading your comment after skimming saw a bunch of toilet paper references.
creer 2y ago
The problem is how to get voters to approve your tax change. It's easy if you can split the voters. That is, blame X of them and tax them, which the rest and a few good souls will happily support. Otherwise you are back to suggesting a falt tax increase which very few will support - until you exempt much of the population, etc, etc.

zie 2y ago

It's very easy to stop funding X from the general fund and using the specific allocated money, so the overall spend on X doesn't increase at all, it's just the money now comes from the special tax, instead of the general fund. The general fund money can then be spent on whatever again, say the mayor's sin habit ;)

dgfitz 2y ago
> It's very easy to stop funding X from the general fund Yeah it only takes a cliche called: an act of congress
- zie 2y ago
  Why do you think that?
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    Doesn't congress need to approve the budget?
    - zie 2y ago
      At the federal level, yes. but that's not related to my point at all. If you've never read the federal budget, it's a great exercise in knowing how the govt operates. I encourage it. If they say spend $100 on toilet paper. It's assumed it comes from the general fund. If they later decide taxing toilet sales for that $100 is a great idea. Awesome. What happens to that $100 budgeted out of the general fund? Sometimes it gets re-allocated, but sometimes not. It almost never means they are suddenly going to start spending $200 on toilet paper though. To do that, they have to specifically write that into the budget. Hence, just because you taxed toilets $100 doesn't mean $100 MORE dollars will get applied to toilet paper. Obviously $100 on TP for the federal government is absurdly low, but that's not the point and I'm too lazy to go figure out the actual costs on toilet paper. I'm sure it's a lot though.
      - dgfitz 2y ago
        I’ve read it. I stopped reading your comment after skimming saw a bunch of toilet paper references.

creer 2y ago

The problem is how to get voters to approve your tax change. It's easy if you can split the voters. That is, blame X of them and tax them, which the rest and a few good souls will happily support. Otherwise you are back to suggesting a falt tax increase which very few will support - until you exempt much of the population, etc, etc.