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[SaberToothTiger]

Cartographers just inventing fake countries for the hell of it?

Yeah.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Apparently, 60% is so ring-fenced. The other 40% can be spread wider, and yet also external revenues 'top up' the road-spending pool, so it's, maybe not like the UK (goes into the genetal pot, and out of it, with merely "raising £Xmillion more by this tax adjustment, we will be able to spend £Xmillion more on that (maybe related, maybe not) expenditure" as a public justification for opening and closing the valves on the money pipelines), but it's messier than you claim.

The government generally attempts to spend according to a relevant revenue  source. It would bad governance to say spend revenue collected from a tax on potash mining to fund prisoner rehabilitation or something.

If your country could readily produce, for export, oh...  I don't know... butterfly wings, and had no need to fund the butterfly-wing producers because they could just so easily (and willingly) dominate the butterfly-wing market even with taxation of a massive market, but at the same time found itself with the problem of insufficient private manufacture of the few vital and much needed pogo-sticks (that your country seems to need) unless there was a flow of public money into the pogo-stick market, then what would be the problem in collecting revenue from one sector sufficient to publicly support the other sector? Even if you had to use a fiscal-hosepipe to directly tie the two together via a dedicated fund (rather than the shared-pot system, exact incomes and outgoings only nominally associated, perhaps a little extra butterfly cash one year that gets spent on painting the fire stations, in another year the pogo-stick demands require a boost but cream-cake sales have boosted (this may not even be correlated!) and the cream-tax provides, the actual details year on year get absorbed by all the other fiscal instruments but can be fully justified so long as there is no permanent drift nor unforeseen dramatic changes in any of the incoming or outgoing streams...

Yes, ask for an idealised "balancing of books", but the modern world just has too many little tricks and traps with money, much 'working wealth' is virtual and continues to be promisary in nature and you can be your bottom zloty that pork-barrel skimming is part of every bit of legislation, to various degrees and in various directions, which may or may not come out to spending-neutral in some areas if you're lucky, but I think we can be sure that fuel/vehicle taxes don't just go to roads on a 1:1 basis. Even if that was desirable. (With your low fuel taxes, either there's not enough or your're nog spending enough. From what I've heard, it's both!)

Yeah, but naturally if butterfly wing sales were taxed and the gov't used it to prop up pogo stick industry they'd lobby for a tax cut and argue they receive no benefit from their taxation are not being represented fairly. Congress would have to argue that the pogo stick industry is invaluable to the people in some indirect way and is a national treasure that must be supported and propose subsidy funded by an increase in income tax or somesuch.

You are right that nothing is that simple, but generally the government wants revenue spent where it came from. Some services benefit everyone, police, courts, national defense so everyone gets taxed for that. But it would be unfair to butterfly wing companies to bear the brunt of the governments new fighter plane program just because they have extra money. It would be even more unfair for those companies to singularly subsidize some unrelated industry. So the government perfers to do business that way to keep people from crying 'taxation without representation'.

[EnigmaticHat]

But why is that a good standard?  The business already has a pool of money dedicated to better itself, which is the profit it makes.  There are countries out there whose entire economies are run by oil.  Does that mean the oil tax money shouldn't be put into the rest of the country?  Should it be 3 rich oil barons and 5 million living in poverty?  What happens when the oil dries up and your literacy rate is 60%?

Also taxation without representation was in reference to the fact that the US was paying taxes to the UK without having a seat in parliament.  While this would be a perfectly valid complaint for, say, Puerto Rico, it hardly seems relevant for a business based anywhere except Washington DC.  Remember, representation doesn't mean you get your way, it just means you have a voice.  Business owners are perfectly capable of writing letters to their congressman just like everyone else.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's a valid complaint for the inhabitants of the District of Columbia (which is why they always say so constantly), but not for Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans have every power to submit a state constitution to Congress and be represented, they just choose not to. It is the same for most of the inhabited territories.

[sluissa]

It's a valid complaint for the inhabitants of the District of Columbia (which is why they always say so constantly), but not for Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans have every power to submit a state constitution to Congress and be represented, they just choose not to. It is the same for most of the inhabited territories.

I was under the impression that Puerto Rico did in fact vote in favor of statehood, but that process can only start from Congress.

[redwallzyl]

It's a valid complaint for the inhabitants of the District of Columbia (which is why they always say so constantly), but not for Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans have every power to submit a state constitution to Congress and be represented, they just choose not to. It is the same for most of the inhabited territories.

DC literally has it written on their car license plates.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Washington%2C_D.C._license_plate.JPG
its sad and hilarious.

[Neonivek]

But why is that a good standard?  The business already has a pool of money dedicated to better itself, which is the profit it makes.  There are countries out there whose entire economies are run by oil.  Does that mean the oil tax money shouldn't be put into the rest of the country?  Should it be 3 rich oil barons and 5 million living in poverty?  What happens when the oil dries up and your literacy rate is 60%?

Isn't the reason why we help things certain things more than others... isn't because "They earn more, thus we get more taxes" but more "We get more cross benefit and thus it helps everyone".

Which is kind of the thing about a strong economy

The reason why we don't entirely play favorites is because that leads directly to stagnation and monopolization.

The Butterfly Business might not benefit from much funding, and thus it would receive much less, but it also would benefit a LOT more from its taxes being used to create a strong overall economy and a greater quality of life for its workers and owners.

[Rusty Shackleford]

But why is that a good standard?  The business already has a pool of money dedicated to better itself, which is the profit it makes.  There are countries out there whose entire economies are run by oil.  Does that mean the oil tax money shouldn't be put into the rest of the country?  Should it be 3 rich oil barons and 5 million living in poverty?  What happens when the oil dries up and your literacy rate is 60%?

Also taxation without representation was in reference to the fact that the US was paying taxes to the UK without having a seat in parliament.  While this would be a perfectly valid complaint for, say, Puerto Rico, it hardly seems relevant for a business based anywhere except Washington DC.  Remember, representation doesn't mean you get your way, it just means you have a voice.  Business owners are perfectly capable of writing letters to their congressman just like everyone else.

Generally corporations are considered people in the USA so their profits are taxed like any other person and the government can spend it on whatever they can rationalize benefits everyone in society including that petroleum company. Like more totally sweet fighter jets. It would be also be reasonable to give them a special tax used to fund clean-up of oil spills or enviromental programs.

Also Id argue since petroleum is so critical to nearly every faceat of modern society its fair to tax and spend it on basically anything.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's a valid complaint for the inhabitants of the District of Columbia (which is why they always say so constantly), but not for Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans have every power to submit a state constitution to Congress and be represented, they just choose not to. It is the same for most of the inhabited territories.

I was under the impression that Puerto Rico did in fact vote in favor of statehood, but that process can only start from Congress.

It's vague. Puerto Rico specifically is holding a second referendum because the first one had a massive quantity of invalid votes on the actual statehood question, but for the process itself it's in many ways undefined.

Historically Congress has directed territorial governments to hold constitutional conventions "when the population supports statehood", but there's also the case of the US Virgin Islands, who submitted a state constitution without being directed by Congress and who were accepted, only not becoming a state due to issues with the state constitution that went unresolved upon being returned to USVI.

[misko27]

Cartographers just inventing fake countries for the hell of it?

Yeah.

I was hoping that would be a link to Belgium, or perhaps Finland.

It's a valid complaint for the inhabitants of the District of Columbia (which is why they always say so constantly), but not for Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans have every power to submit a state constitution to Congress and be represented, they just choose not to. It is the same for most of the inhabited territories.

DC literally has it written on their car license plates.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Washington%2C_D.C._license_plate.JPG
its sad and hilarious.

Everyone I've ever met from DC has demanded statehood. I don't know why DC exists, what kind of greater madness could there be then people elected from all over the country to deal with national issues also all being in charge of a middle-to-large sized city. It seems like the founders wanted to avoid a situation where the city, itself, exerted power over the Federal government, but this is far in the other direction.

Imagine if Congress was your city council.

[Starver]

Cartographers just inventing fake countries for the hell of it?

Yeah.

Is that anywhere near San Seriffe?

(More relevant...)

[redwallzyl]

Imagine if Congress was your city council.

The Horror.

[Neonivek]

Imagine if Congress was your city council.

The Horror.

Well... they would certainly be taking a lot less drugs.

[Enemy post]

Trump just fired FBI Director Comey.

[EnigmaticHat]

Holy shit.  During a massive active investigation.

What the actual fuck.  I bet he'll lose half a percentage point on his Republican approval rating that's how bad this is.