Farm Bureau Chat Held at Baker's Farm

A very interesting article about the recent Farm Bureau Chat with public officials held in Sevens member Tim Baker's big barn on Monday night.  As with most of the country, tax revenues are down because people are not only out of work, but spending less.  In particular, I found the discussion about the County Wheel Tax interesting:

Less money at the state level means less at the county level—and fewer services locally, as well.

One of those services, Woodward pointed out, was the county road paving program, which has come to a dead stop. When Baker asked Woodward why the county wheel tax was not being used for the road paving program — which Baker said it was his understanding that's why it was adopted — Woodward responded that the county never earmarked the wheel tax for anything specific. And, he added, revenue at the county level has also been declining and it's taken the wheel tax — and even CEDIT funds — to just keep the county roads maintained.

So the problems we have nationally, that all money given to the government is thrown into one big pot and spent without regard to the purpose for which it was collected, it true locally, as well.  Why is that?  Why is it that even at the lowest levels of government no way exists to tag tax money to specific efforts?  So all the Wheel Tax money has been spent on other services than paving just as all our Social Security taxes have been spent on whatever bright bauble has caught the eye of Congress this week.