Rambling thoughts during football game.....

[TomVeil]

They ran this piece during the football game about how the local police in dallas delivered some trophies or something. (I wasn't paying much attention) That got me thinking about how many little ceremonies there are like this around the country.

My question is, who do you think pays for these sort of things? Public people/goods are being used for it. Assuming that the police station donates/pays for the things needed for it, don't you think that they shouldn't? It seems like the people who want the police to show up at these things should pay for the resources needed. Pay off-duty policemen who want to earn some extra money (acting in an offical police capacity, of course). Rent the cars/other resources directly from the police deparment at fair prices. A way to build the police fund without general taxation. The people who want them to do these things will be the ones paying for it.

I'm way too cynical to believe that's the way it actually goes. Anybody know for sure?

[Zygote]

I remember writing a paper over ads in Canada that were run by the government to tote their success in raising provincial figures for health care and how this trend will continue. The ad detailed that the sponsor was the government and seemed like the motive was to promote the current administration and aid any future elections all with the use of public funds.

I essentially concluded in paper, "don't spend money telling us how good you're doing or how good you're going to be, spend the money on the cause and be great right now"

[iron81]

Illinois is horrible for what Zygote is describing. There are seven statewide elected officers and most of them appear regularly on TV in person on ads touting some government program: organ donation or children's health care or something similar. Of course, the State picks up the tab for these thinly veiled campaign ads.

I don't think there is as much of a problem with Tom's problem. The police department is frequently reimbursed for services provided to private entities. Two examples I can think of are traffic control and making officers and squad cars available for movie scenes. I suspect the police department here got something similar.

[pvn]

Good news, comrades!

The chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grammes per week!