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| 2009/4/6-13 [Reference/Tax, Transportation/PublicTransit] UID:52808 Activity:high |
4/6 Alameda sales tax is now 9.75%. that's pretty rough. sales
tax is regressive. Some boneheaded Oakland city council member
wants to raise Oakland sales tax even more, in this
recession. - motd liberal
\_ Yes, the sales tax, car tax, and income tax increases enacted by the
state legislature are the largest in history, and massively
regressive. Add in the federal tobacco tax increase and the poor
have been hammered.
\_ I'm going to give the legislature a break on car taxes. Arnold
shouldn't have used that issue to get into office.
\_ Irrespective of Arnold's tactics, a doubling of the VLF is
still a huge hit for many low-income families.
\_ Compared to all the other costs of car ownership
car taxes are pretty damn tiny, especially if you
own a junker. (1.15 percent, or about 33 bucks/year on
a car that costs 3000 dollars) In the mid/late 90s VLF
fees were about twice what they are now.
\_ Regressive taxes are good. Tax the poor right out of existence!
It's their own fault for being poor!
-- Typical conservative whackjob
a car that costs 3000 dollars, so an extra ~$16 a year.)
In the mid/late 90s VLF fees were about twice what
they are now.
\_ Car drivers are still massively subsidized by non-drivers,
who tend to be even poorer.
\_ I doubt it, since non-drivers are a small portion of
the population and have small incomes. I think you
could eliminate non-drivers from the country completely
and it would hardly affect drivers. What gets
massive subsidies is public transit.
\_ That's only true if you ignore most of the costs
of driving.
\_ Public transit gets less subsidy per rider than
automobiles do, actually. Many non-drivers are
old and not poor.
\_ Old generally means lower income. In 2000 87%
of the "driving age population" had a license.
(Driving age population basically excludes kids.
There is no upper age.) How much do you think
that other 13% is contributing? It's probably
much less than 13% of the tax base. There is no
way car drivers are subsidized by non-drivers.
\_ That doesn't mean driving isn't subsidized.
It just means that the subsidizers are often
also the drivers. That both hides the true
cost of car ownership and makes it so it's
not cost effective to opt out.
\_ How do you subsidize yourself? You are
being ridiculous now.
\_ Say I have to pay a lot of taxes
to build roads/clean up after cars/
spend money on traffic enforcement/
etc. That's a subsidy. Yeah I get
services from it, but it hides the
total costs of car ownership. And
total costs of car ownership. And if
I chose not to own a car I still have
to pay thoses costs so there's much
less incentive to use alternatives.
\_ I think there is a strong case that those
that drive less (or not at all) subsidize
those who drive more. If something is
subsidized so that users of it don't see
the true cost, it tends to get over-
consumed.
\_ Has a license does not mean has a car. Has
a license does not mean drives regularly.
\_ No, but has a license = driver. Drivers
sometimes walk, bike, or take public
transit, too, but we're still drivers.
Roads benefit everyone. Emergency
services and firefighting, transport of
goods, and even buses and bikes benefit
by roads. However, not everyone benefits
from public transit.
\_ take the million-plus trips that
go by public transit in the Bay Area
each day and turn them into car trips,
and you'll see how public transit
benefits everyone. -tom
\_ No, that just benefits Bay Area
commuters.
\_ Everyone benefits from reduced congestion,
cleaner air and fewer people injured on
the highways.
\_ Almost certainly my last post
on this subject: Having a
transportation network capable
of moving lots of people from
place to place in the region
is a benefit to everyone.
Employers, for example, are
benefitted by having access
to their employees. Public
transit moves more people per
dollar or per unit of land use
than roads do, which gives the
overall infrastructure greater
capacity at a lower cost. -tom
\_ It's only efficient if you
happen to need to go exactly
where public transit takes you.
You have a point if you want
to go from A to B, but not if
you want to go from A to [A-Z].
You can replace all roads with
rail and build a thousand new
train stations if you want to
achieve the effect you desire
but that seems horribly
expensive given the roads are
already in place and the
logistics are nasty for cargo
(which is why trucks are used
more often than cheaper existing
rail in many cases). We aren't
talking about building some
utopian society from scratch,
but leveraging off of what
exists and there is no way
replacing roads with rail
makes sense at this time in
I'd say 98% of cases.
\_ Have you ever been to
Europe?
\_ I have. I noticed the
startling existence
of roads.
\_ Far fewer than here,
per capita. How do you
think they do that?
\_ Mash 4 million
people into a
closet? Per capita!
How about per square
kilometer?? It's
about the same as
here.
\_ Keep beating that straw
man, I'm sure you'll get
him at some point. -tom
\_ Is that your new nickname?
\_ Everyone benefits from reduced
congestion, cleaner air and fewer
people injured on the highways.
\_ I would say that the cost/benefit
ratio is high for the typical
American who is not living in a
crowded city. Why should they
subsidize commuters in SF and NYC?
\_ Who is this typical American who
doesn't live in a crowded city?
However, I think it's clear why
those in SF and NYC should still
pay for roads in middle America.
Let me make this more clear: We need
the roads. We cannot eliminate them.
Claiming that they are subsidized
(or not) misses this point. We have
to pay for them. We do not need rail
(distinguished from buses because
buses also need the road) at this
time in most of the country and
even in the areas that we do we still
need roads. It's a luxury that makes
life better for some people. Like
all luxuries, it should be paid
for by those who use those services.
You can argue that we should be
building a rail infrastructure to
handle future population increases,
but you will *still* need the roads
so that just means increasing total
transportation costs. You will
not get to a point where rail is
free and all the roads are toll
roads and even if you did you
would just be shifting the costs
around so that you'd pay for them
with higher prices for goods,
emergency services, and so on.
You (the non-driver) will not be
able to escape paying for roads
unless there are no roads and
that is unlikely in my lifetime.
\_ No, we don't need all those
roads. We could easily get by
with 1/4 the road network. Why
should urban commuters subsidize
suburban commuters? You have no
explaination, other than "we need
it." We only need big interstates
like I-5 and I-10, we don't need
all the commuter beltways, like
580 and 24. If we didn't have
commuter rail, we would have to
build even more freeways, which
cost more per passenger than rail.
\_ You needs roads almost
everywhere because goods ship
to/from almost everywhere
and you need to be able to
provide emergency access to
almost everywhere (firefighters
and ambulance). In fact, I
would argue you need those
local roads *more* than you
need roads like I-5 and
I-10, which could more easily be
replaced by rail for transport
of goods and people, too.
Drive I-5 and you will see
it's hardly used for local
transit and transport.
\_ There is no need to provide
goods and emergency access
to low density regions. I
lived in Wyoming and it would
be stupid to build paved
roads to every house. Why
should the taxpayer support
someones desire to live out
in the middle of nowhere?
\_ I agree except I suspect
you have a weird idea of
what "low density" means.
Everything not in the
largest cities is not "low
density". If you want
to argue against Alaska
highways (Bridge To
Nowhere) I am with you on
that, but not if you
are talking about
roads in places like
Stockton.
\_ It is fine to build a
small two lane road in
places like Stockton,
sufficient for goods
delivery (and what we
had in the 50's) but
that is not what we
have now.
\_ What was the
population in the
50's compared
to now?
\_ If the people who
want to use all
that extra
infrastructure
want to pay for
it, that is fine,
but if they don't
let it go back to
weeds, like
Detroit is doing
today. No use in
throwing good
money after bad.
People who live in rural areas get
all other kinds of subsidizes as
well, which we should phase out.
It is inefficient to live so widely
spread out and rural people (other
than farmers) don't really
contribute that much to the
economy. All those big yards are
luxuries that you should not expect
others to pay for. If we got rid
of all those inefficient freeways
and replaced them with more
efficient transportation methods,
prices would go down, not up, like
you claim. |
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