Money is fungible, right? Let’s say we have a limited budget. We have to decide how to spend it. In order to fund one thing we must defund another (or increase the budget, aka increase taxes, which isn’t popular).
OK, so let’s say we find there’s ways to decrease crime that are more effective than police. We should want to fund that, correct? We have to find a way to pay for it now. We need to take money from one service to fund this other service. Since it’s doing the same job as police, but with a better effect/cost, we should probably consider defining police to pay for this, right?
It turns out, we do have the data to show these services do exist and are more cost-effective than police. What should we do?
Money is fungible, right? Let’s say we have a limited budget. We have to decide how to spend it. In order to fund one thing we must defund another (or increase the budget, aka increase taxes, which isn’t popular).
OK, so let’s say we find there’s ways to decrease crime that are more effective than police. We should want to fund that, correct? We have to find a way to pay for it now. We need to take money from one service to fund this other service. Since it’s doing the same job as police, but with a better effect/cost, we should probably consider defining police to pay for this, right?
It turns out, we do have the data to show these services do exist and are more cost-effective than police. What should we do?