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Comment by tareqak | Hacker News Reader

I know that my suggestion sounds like a knee-jerk reaction, but I wish that each and every public service had one or more prominently-displayed large signs on their premises saying how much their expenses were and where the money came from to pay for it. My reasoning? It's easy to tunnel-vision on your own financial situation when you are sufficiently ignorant of what services your taxes are paying for.

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It surprised the hell out of me as it will you but ignorance of how much it cost and where the money goes wasn't an issue here. These Douglas county voters mailed in their rejection of a dedicated library tax.

Most everywhere else in the country your suggestion makes sense. In my county library funds are bundled in the county general ad valorem property tax.

That is surprising, but I'm willing to believe that it is also the exception and not the norm.

How it works:

Government officials want more money for random nonsense and corruption. Voters disapprove. Government officials pick something to hold hostage, such as the library. They propose a special library tax. Meanwhile, the random nonsense and corruption is getting funded.

The voters aren't that dumb. They know the library could be funded, and they don't wish to fund random nonsense and corruption.

It's a threat, "Give more money or we'll cut something you like!", when the voters can plainly see that funds are going to things that are improper.

Suppose the voters fund the library. Next year, when that funding gets diverted, the government will come asking for more. Maybe it will be a different thing needlessly on the chopping block.

I think that's what Steve Ballmer is trying to push with usafacts.com. Get people to be more aware of where their money goes. Or something like that, I've never actually checked it out, just heard him in an interview.

Every local government tax bill here in Auckland, New Zealand comes with a breakdown of where each dollar goes. It comes every 3 months. They also publish it on their site. I’ve probably read it before but certainly haven’t in the last few years.

It'd be nice to see it on the actual building providing a service. I know that a lot of governments (national, state/provincial, local/municipal) publish this information, but having a currency value next to school or a library is powerful thing. Imagine a political candidate advocating for tax cuts in a local debate, and a member of the audience asks, "Candidate, after your tax cut, where will the $X for my child's school come from?"

Meanwhile, in the united states, people are sued for copyright infringement for publishing publicly available information such as "laws".

I wish our local and state governments were as transparent as yours; sometimes they are, but it's not universal, and it's a sad disgrace that our country's (US's) governing bodies are so enthralled with secrecy in most public matters.

ADDENDUM: Apparently either people think I'm being off topic (maybe), or I'm making stuff up, so, here's a source:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/public-records-a...

Let's say your city government has a budget of $100M and spends $20M on schools, $20M on roads, $20M on the fire department, $20M on police, and $20M on a solid gold hot tub filled with wine in the mayor's office.

You see the signs on the schools, the fire stations, the roads, the police cars, and you think, "wow, my taxes sure are paying for lots of useful stuff!". You may be less enthusiastic about the solid gold hot tub, since it doesn't benefit you at all, but the system "corrects" for that automatically: since you don't use it, you never see the "paid with $20M of your taxes" sign that it, too, prominently displays.

Later some jerk runs for mayor with a bid to lower taxes by 20%, but thanks to the signs, he's easily defeated. Instead you vote Yes on Proposition Q, which raises taxes by 5%. The mayor buys a bigger solid gold tub.

You really think the politicians will allow you to make them accountable for spending ?

Tell me you havent been around end of the year spend your budget parties / memos ?

We can always try. The end-of-year-spend-your-budget phenomenon is definitely real, but could be mitigated or eliminated with the correct incentives e.g. what your department saves rolls over into your budget into the next year.

I would prefer to get the information in the form of a detailed breakdown at the end of the year of what my share of the taxes paid for.

"That police station cost $X million dollars" is too abstract for me to be able to understand without doing additional research. "You personally spent $X.00 funding libraries" is something that I can wrap my head around.

I like this idea, but I think you can have both too.

We can also require that of private businesses that get tax payer money.

Can we also have the opposite? I would like to know exactly what tax dollars are spent on. Preferably going back in time as well.

Some governments have this capability already, but it's definitely not widespread. An extension to your idea would be able to record and publish these near-instantly (sort of like Mint, but for government and the results published for the public).

I like this. Would every highway, road, and street need to have a sign every so many miles/blocks?

I know Oregon does this to an extent; I have seen signs located next to state highway projects "Your tax dollars at work.".

These signs rarely state how much the project costs, though. They just say it was part of such and such tax. At least the ones I have seen.

Yeah, the actual cost is what I am interested in as well as how much was paid for via taxes.

Also add costs of pollution and health costs for accidents.

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