…Like real-life lottery winners, states use oil and gas tax revenue differently. Many use it for short-term purposes, enhancing general fund expenditures that would otherwise require public service cuts or higher taxes elsewhere in the economy. Some might have enough left over to pad their funds for a budgetary rainy day.
But when it comes to permanent, legacy-type savings, there’s often little or nothing to save. “It’s very difficult to put money aside in a political environment. And once there is, it’s hard to keep it there,” said Mark Haggerty, an economist with Headwaters Economics, of Bozeman, Mont., who has studied oil tax policy among the states…