[1] https://jeremymarkovich.substack.com/p/why-north-carolina-do...

ETA: This doesn't completely solve the problem, as the federal government provides some air cover to keep screwing people over, but it does do _something_

Avoiding any actual names: if Charity X advertises itself as a leading way to fight hunger / homelessness / animal abuse / poverty, but 90% of X's budget goes to raising more money, I call that "a conflict of interest." (90% is not a disqualifying amount, by the way.)

As a donor, if you think you're fighting <whatever> but what you're really doing is providing salaries for friends and family of the founders, then you're actually doing something else. What would you call it?

This isn't a good thing, but it probably needs to be dealt at a state level, by passing laws preventing local officers from enforcing traffic laws on the interstate.

They're probably financing a lot of the rest of the town, too.

Guide to Equitable Sharing for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement: https://www.justice.gov/criminal-afmls/file/794696/download

St. Charles, Missouri police have been coercing drivers into signing over millions of dollars of their assets without convictions or even charges:

https://reason.com/2019/12/30/missouri-cops-used-federal-loo...

if for some reason the revenue can't be made up elsewhere and the schools come to depend on revenue from fines/seizures, that still leaves the police department with a lot of leverage.

Certainly that's where parking tickets should go, and probably drunk driving fines. At the very least.

It's the same reason why lottery revenue or (in California) bond approval propositions are typically earmarked for "noble causes" (schools, firefighters, parks...). It's a cheap promise to make, and the share of general operating revenue allocated to these departments can quietly decrease as lottery or bond financing replaces it, completely working around the spirit of the earmarking.

It sounds trivial to say but control of budgeting decisions is obtained through control of budgeting decisions; earmarking constraints are just accounting games to make spending more palatable to taxpayers.

Laws aren't only for punishing people who have something to seize. How else do we deal with people who have no money but still commit minor infractions?