A service, funded by tax dollars, was put in place 20 years ago - resulting in a tax increase of 0.5% to everyone. Maybe it was broadly beneficial at the time, maybe not. That doesn't really matter. Now, 20 years later, the service isn't beneficial in any real way to the vast majority. But for 250 people (0.25%) it's still very beneficial.

Everyone in the community wants "lower taxes" but they don't really care which 0.5% of the taxes get cut. They just want to pay less, so generally, they ask the government to spend less. However, those 250 people really, really want the service to continue. They are highly interested in keeping that service. They will lobby, spend money, advocate, complaint, etc to keep that service. You have 999,750 who generally want lower taxes but don't really care about this or that specific service and 250 who are highly invested in keeping the service.

So it stays. Each one of those things that a few are extremely motivated to keep stay.

It is this way with so many programs, services, regulations, tariffs, etc. A small group of people / businesses / organizations / states are highly interested and incentivised around the specifics - the rest of us are generally "harmed" in that we pay more / face additional hurdles or regulations, but that one "cost" is only a tiny percentage of all the costs that we face. Is just that every single tiny piece adds up to a really big number and some special interest is highly highly interested in each piece.

[Post edited by RML Hoos at 02/16/2024 09:50AM]