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A comment on Police in tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’. Parent comment

Re:Police in tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘blac... by ridaj on Thursday January 20, 2022 @02:22PM (#30013415)
Earmarking revenue just gets worked around. If an agency's budget is $100M from the general operating budget, and $20M earmarked revenue suddenly comes in to that agency, their share of the general operating budget will simply be reduced to $80M.

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.

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Re:Police in tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘blac... by extrapickles on Thursday January 20, 2022 @03:26PM (#30014326)
Earmarking revenue to a "noble cause" is a great way to protect the thing that is generating that revenue. It becomes a "you don't like firefighters/children/etc" argument whenever you want to remove or reform the thing that is providing that earmarked revenue.
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