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You would need every local, state, and federal entity to move to GAAP or IFRS instead of cash basis accounting at the same time. Otherwise some localities would purposefully not do so to claim that they're a tax haven good for attracting jobs. And such a move would probably require a massive correction in taxes or service levels or pensions to get back into shape, which would be a hard lift even for the most authoritarian of governments.

This is, in fact, how greenfield suburbs operate; they claim much lower tax rates because they don't really care about the infrastructure lifecycle, whereas cities are constantly maintaining and fixing things. Some of the first suburbs in America in Nassau County have such poor financial positions that county finances have been controlled by the state since 2000, and property taxes have hiked every year, with increases of up to 20% in a single year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassau_Interim_Finance_Authori...




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