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Comment by azernik | Hacker News Reader

They really are. At least in California.

One of many ways in which local government here is fucked up.

More like a common gripe for people who don't understand the role of government or the fungibility of money. My first political season spent in California I was shocked at how in the discourse some people used the phrase "general fund" as shorthand for political wrongdoing without any further elaboration. Ok, they pool the money, so what? If they spend the money for something else, we the people are still receiving government services in exchange for our taxes as allocated by our duely elected officials, so I see no harm, no foul.

I am sure some fake-libertarian HNer who wants the shrink government to the size of a bathtub drain will tell me I am wrong.

Most of my fellow classical liberals don't have an issue with state populations choosing to grow state governments, just the federal government (this fact is often overlooked by people who have not taken the time to understand the classical liberal point of view).

Oh I didn't mean that this phenomenon addresses the fucked-up-ness; I meant that allocating specific taxes to specific programs is no way to run a government.

Common misconception- usually what happens is we are promised that funds from a new tax will be earmarked for something, then it winds up going in to the general fund, or spent somewhere else.

Taxpayers have a real blind spot to the whole 'money is fungible' concept.

This isn't a misconception in California; the literal text of the law in some circumstances effectively earmarks funds. For example, take the first proposition from the last election — which happens to be about schools — Prop 51 from the November 2016 general election:

> A fund is hereby established in the State Treasury, to be known as the 2016 State School Facilities Fund

> no disbursement shall be made from any funds required by law to be transferred to the General Fund.

> Bonds in the total amount of nine billion dollars ($9,000,000,000) […] may be issued and sold for the purposes set forth…

(This proposition was approved by the voters.)

Right, but if you were paying schools $x from the general fund, then a special law gives them an extra $y, you can reduce the payment from the general fund by $y.

Thus the schools are receiving the $y, just as promised. Only they aren't any better off, and the general fund has an extra $y in it now.

Generally speaking, the money that gets earmarked goes where it belongs. It's all the other money that wasn't earmarked before-hand that gets pulled out.

The political promise is usually "Hey, we'll implement a lottery and earmark 100% of the taxes towards education -- that'll be $20 million a year!" to which everybody thinks that $20 million will be added to the $30 million already being spent. But what happens is the $20 million lottery gets added, then the $20 million non-earmarked funds get pulled to pay for <insert other thing here>, such that the schools don't end up with any more or less than they had.

Past that, "earmarked for schools" is also a way to reframe over political opponents against the lottery as "voting against education".

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