Taxpayers don't actually pay union worker's pensions

[TeeDub]

No. The City ordinance requires any occupied dwelling to have trash service. If you are a singly family residence, the city provides you with service. If you are a duplex (or more), you have options.

Last time I checked, a fee, mandated by a government.....    was called a tax.

Or is that not the way things work anymore?

[Hoss]

Last time I checked, a fee, mandated by a government.....    was called a tax.

Or is that not the way things work anymore?

OK, so how about your insurance on your vehicle?  Is that a tax?  It IS, after all, mandated by the gubmint.

[TeeDub]

It could be considered that (at least the liability portion,) as could car tags.

We call them different things just to eliminate the stigma of "taxes" but really that is what they are.

[RecycleMichael]

These are the two definitions I recall on the difference between taxes and fees.

One, If the charge is based on a dollar amount (like sales tax, property tax, income tax) it is a tax. If the amount is based on anything else, (per person, per household, per pound) it is a fee.

Two, if the charge benefits all, (like roads, schools, etc.) directly or indirectly, then it is a tax. If it applies only to the direct person (like a fishing license, driver's license, etc.) then it is a fee.

[Gaspar]

What if there is no deficit?

The trash fund actually has a surplus.

The Tulsa City Council has tried to spend this money on non-trash expenses like giving the police department more money. There argument was that they should be allowed tospend it because they were the stewards of all city money.

It isn't a silly argument. You make statements that are in conflict with the facts then when others show real world examples, you just dismiss it.

Taxpayers don't completely pay for all government salaries and benefits. You were incorrect in believing so.

   

Ok, so now I'm really confused. 

Lets go back to the subject matter. . .Would it be OK for the State of Wisconsin to take a government service that is running a surplus and use that money to pay for teacher's benefits, or should that money go towards servicing their debt?

Should all debt come from tax payers, or should revenue generating services pay on debt?

At the end of the day when you analyse budgeted spending vs deficit spending, how do you account for the surplus of one department over the lack in another?

Is the tax payer not ultimately responsible for the difference?

If the city runs a surplus (that's what it needs to be called under a budget, not revenue) on trash pickup, is it not the city's duty to relieve the burden on tax payers with that surplus?

I guess the point is, when operating under a tax-payer funded budget, the generation of surpluses (or revenue) belongs to the tax payers, not to the department, authority, or public entity.  Departments that continuously generate these surpluses need to see a reduction in their next year's budget.

Departments don't get to go out and buy new trucks or staplers because they ran a surplus.  I would encourage that they are rewarded for running surpluses, but that money does not belong to them.  It belongs to the tax payers just as the debt belongs to the tax payers.

[RecycleMichael]

You are not paying attention.

The taxpayers did not create the surplus, nor the deficit in this case. They don't get to decide to spend the money elsewhere if they did not pay into the fund.

If the taxpayers did cause a budget surplus or a budget deficit, it does belong back to the taxpayers. What is not defined is to how it is distributed or collected.

Do the taxpayers get a rebate or a lower bill in a surplus, do the tax rates go up in a deficit? The answer is yes, but it is not that simple.

Currently, in my example of trash rates, the trash authority has decided to give back the surplus by subsidizing trash rates. That is why the trash bills have only increased once in ten years (and once they actually went down slightly), while water and sewer rates seem to rise every year. Slowly giving the money back by freezing rates when costs went up was chosen. An other method might be to make new upgrades (like buying new carts that could help keeps rates lower in the future).

You seem to be under the assumption that because you are a taxpayer you get to demand that no money should ever be given to the workers especially to their pensions. In reality, once of the reasons there is a surplus is that the workers have done a good job in keeping expenses down.

[Gaspar]

You are not paying attention.

The taxpayers did not create the surplus, nor the deficit in this case. They don't get to decide to spend the money elsewhere if they did not pay into the fund.

If the taxpayers did cause a budget surplus or a budget deficit, it does belong back to the taxpayers. What is not defined is to how it is distributed or collected.

Do the taxpayers get a rebate or a lower bill in a surplus, do the tax rates go up in a deficit? The answer is yes, but it is not that simple.

Currently, in my example of trash rates, the trash authority has decided to give back the surplus by subsidizing trash rates. That is why the trash bills have only increased once in ten years (and once they actually went down slightly), while water and sewer rates seem to rise every year. Slowly giving the money back by freezing rates when costs went up was chosen. An other method might be to make new upgrades (like buying new carts that could help keeps rates lower in the future).

You seem to be under the assumption that because you are a taxpayer you get to demand that no money should ever be given to the workers especially to their pensions. In reality, once of the reasons there is a surplus is that the workers have done a good job in keeping expenses down.

You have just said nothing that I can disagree with with the exception of causality.  It makes no difference who you wish to attribute the cause of a surplus on (green). 

As you have stated (in red), The money does ultimately belong to the taxpayer.  Simple or complex, the budget represents a layout of services funded by the taxpayer.  Any surplus is treated as such, and applied to future budgets or through other measures (such as subsidies or additional services) returned to the taxpayer.

The money came from the taxpayer originally to fund the budget and any deficit or surplus falls back on the taxpayer.  That is the simple truth.

Back to the subject again, and cutting off the winding thread this discussion has taken. . .in the case of the Wisconson teachers, the money does come out of the pocket of the taxpayer.

It seems we agree on the ownership of the funds, it is simply the way we like to express it that differs, and that is based on our political differences.

[cannon_fodder]

RM,

I appreciate the difference between services the government can provide for a fee and tax funded services.  Fee based is better for the reasons you illustrated (we can see which ways work better, what people want to pay for, and allow market forces to work).

However, the wisconsin schools are not fee based.  The workers are not in a competitive marketplace where nonunion labor competes.  And we have no metric to show that the union labor is of any benefit (actually, in general, lower paid non union private school teachers have higher performing students.  Causation is not correlation).

Public schools have an oligopoly and the teachers union services 90+% of students with public, non fee, revenue.  Their pension is entrely funded by state/local/federal money.

Whether or not that means collective bargaining of rights should go is the issue.

[guido911]

We call them different things just to eliminate the stigma of "taxes" but really that is what they are.

Exactly. I called it weapons grade hairsplitting earlier.  Here is the Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009) definition of "tax":

tax, n. (14c) A charge, usu. monetary, imposed by the government on persons, entities, transactions, or property to yield public revenue. • Most broadly, the term embraces all governmental impositions on the person, property, privileges, occupations, and enjoyment of the people, and includes duties, imposts, and excises. Although a tax is often thought of as being pecuniary in nature, it is not necessarily payable in money. [Cases: Internal Revenue 3001; Taxation 2001.] — tax, vb.
"Taxes are the enforced proportional contributions from persons and property, levied by the state by virtue of its sovereignty for the support of government and for all public needs. This definition of taxes, often referred to as 'Cooley's definition,' has been quoted and indorsed, or approved, expressly or otherwise, by many different courts. While this definition of taxes characterizes them as 'contributions,' other definitions refer to them as 'imposts,' 'duty or impost,' 'charges,' 'burdens,' or 'exactions'; but these variations in phraseology are of no practical importance." 1 Thomas M. Cooley, The Law of Taxation § 1, at 61–63 (Clark A. Nichols ed., 4th ed. 1924).

[Emphasis added].