What do states do with sales tax that is collected?

It goes into the General Fund. It is not slated for any particular purpose but just generally to pay the bills.

Pays for roads, police, paramedics, schools, education, parks, government agencies that take care of the town, post office, all the stuff that is free that we take for granted, although it actually costs a lot of money.

They buy more traffic cop motorcycles and radar guns and spy cameras…

In FL it helps the residents not have to pay any income tax. Sales tax is used for schools, infrastructure, public programs. I’m sure it must be public record how it is spent in FL if you want to read up on it.

FL sales tax is not extremely high.

If you are curious about a specific state, call the Governor of the state and his staff members will or should be able to advise you, either verbally or by telling you where you can find the information on the internet. Governmental budgets should be transparent since it’s taxpayers’ money that we’re talking about.

As @JLeslie point out, it depends on the tax base and structure of the individual state. Some rely heavily on real estate tax, others on sales tax. But, as everyone states, the taxes pay for the services the states provide the general populous.

@Dutchess_III

Actually the post office (USPS) doesn’t use any tax dollars (and hasn’t since the early Reagan administration).

So how does the USPS function?

Entirely from the revenues it generates via the goods and services it offers. Same as any other business.

Huh. Well, email and social media probably put a huge hole in their revenue.

To a degree, but the real thing that’s hurting them is the idiotic mandate by Congress that they fund 75 years worth of employee benefits and pensions in advance. Before that was passed the USPS was actually doing better fiscally than it ever had. Sure, e-mail has largely replaced letters, but you still can’t send parcels through the internet.