Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
But that's not happening; hence the suggestion for user fees. My state (Washington) just implemented user fees for all state parks and other state recreational lands. Even though we pay taxes for these, it's not enough. |
And even those fees will be collected and not applied directly to the parks (most likely.) That is the way it works in my city: They apply fees, including late fees and a direct tax on the water bill. ALL of that goes into a general fund and then the pols get to vote where it actually gets spent.
Voting to agree to that fee--or any other--without verbage that REQUIRES the money be spent there is a farce.
New Mexico voted in a lottery--in order to give schools more money. Guess what? The politician says that the lottery funds schools--excellent! All the money that used to fund schools? Goes elsewhere. The net? Slightly less to about the same for schools each year.
NO additional money was raised. They just moved the pea in the shell game. There was no constitutional requirement--or part of the law that required them to keep funding the same or higher. It just meant that lottery money could be spent on schools and all the rest usually allocated there got to be frittered away.