[lbo-talk] NY blocks mayor's congestion plan

Jordan Hayes jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com
Tue Apr 8 08:44:51 PDT 2008


Michael Smith writes:


> It's not a tax of any kind, pro- or re-. It's a *price* paid for the
> enjoyment of a service. Like the subway fare, or the toll on the
> George Washington Bridge. Nobody argues that these constitute
> "regressive taxes."

Maybe our knitting circles are different, but plenty of people (rightly, IMHO) call tolls regressive taxes; we don't have toolbooths on city streets (and they don't scan your EzPass when the Fire Department sends paramedics), and yet that's what a bridge is: a street, which the whole population benefits from, whether or not you actually drive on them. In the case of a bridge maintained by a government, charging a toll is exacting a tax. Call them "user fees" if you must, but in a country where the Income Tax is already decently progressive, almost any user fee is a regressive tax. I think I've mentioned this before, but I think the best way to pay for the maintenance of transportation infrastructure (and many other things besides) is through the General Fund.

----

Doug wants, as he's said repeatedly, to blindly "make it more expensive to drive" -- in general, but most especially in NYC. I can't think of a better way to accomplish this goal than to just shut the city off from traffic that generates locomotion from the burning of fossil fuel. That ought to be a very expensive decision indeed.

But now we're looping (see my 8 year running battle with Doug on this point in the archives): you simply cannot "make it more expensive" without providing an immediate alternative. In the case of Bloomberg's proposal, he planned to _fund the alternative_ with projected (no doubt erroneously calculated) tax revenues. Well I say: build it first, then let's talk about making the existing system harder to use.

/jordan



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