Why not to tax miles driven
There is one news item that you need to know how to debunk in any argument.
From here:
And, from here
The first article describes a feeble attempt to raise more tax money while trying to secure the environmental vote, nothing more. People will not drive less because they are taxed on how much they drive; you don't drive anywhere these places unless you really need to, because you have a good chance of being stuck in traffic for over an hour. Tolls would simply cost drivers more, and do absolutely nothing to limit road use. The only way road use could be limited is if the tolls are high enough so that people eventually move away, and then there are fewer people to drive around, rather than a smaller percent of the population on the road at any given time.
The second article has a lot more for me to chew on. The same need to drive somewhere from the above paragraph apply to this.
Now, when you try to remove people from specific roads, they use a detour. A detour will almost always take longer than the route it replaced. This means that the traffic will simply be diverted to a different road. Also, because the detour takes longer, there will be more cars on the road at any given time. With more cars comes more congestion and pollution. Thus, the first two parts of " relieve congestion, clean up the air, and give money to Muni" have been ripped to shreds, as the toll would really do the exact opposite of what McGoldrick claims (except for raising money, it will certainly do that).
Those additional taxes look like they are targeting the city because the city has little other than commercial buildings (or at least I think it does). Thus, a tax on the metropolitan area would be a tax on "big business", which many Californians seem to despise.
What California really needs is to:
1: remove regulations on how high residential buildings can be built (this is what prevents giant apartment buildings from popping up just outside the city limits).
2: remove environmental regulations that prevent construction of anything. Half of San Francisco Bay is under regulations that prevent any development of the land, if Sowell's Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One is correct.
3: build more highways between highly populated areas like, say, Las Angeles and San Francisco (which I believe has only 1 highway, a very congested highway, running between them).
4: offer large subsidies for mass transportation companies and focus on improving the road network as a whole.
A big help would be to get rid of many of these activists, or at least stop listening to them. Those activists are pushing politicians to write laws that harm the city, so those politicians can be reelected.
I have an interesting new idea, and I would love some feedback as to whether it would work. In the election after a politician leaves office, the voters should get to choose whether or not to give the former politicians an additional pension. For example, if determining the pension for a president, Clinton's pension would have been voted on in 2004, as that was the next presidential election after Clinton took office.
This term-length gap would give a politician's long-term work to be seen comparatively clearly, and would be an incentive for potential politicians to seek only a single term and do the best the can to help their city/state/whatever in that term. Politicians who do not intend to seek a second term rarely make decisions based on popular opinion and what can get them more votes.
It would be nice to see how it works out. It would cost a lot overall, but tens of millions of dollars are nothing to the federal government, which spends close to $1 billion per hour.
From here:
Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."
Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.
And, from here
San Francisco would become the first city in the nation to charge drivers just for driving in its chronically congested downtown under a sure-to-be controversial proposal being aired today.
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, chair of the San Francisco Transportation Authority, will ask the agency to study a downtown toll zone -- whereby drivers would need to purchase a daily pass to drive in The City's most congested streets -- as a potential solution to the Municipal Transportation Agency's woeful budget problems.
"The key issue here is if we can kill three birds with one stone -- relieve congestion, clean up the air, and give money to Muni (no idea what Muni is, maybe the Municipal Transportation Agency) -- we would have hit a home run," McGoldrick said.
…
McGoldrick's proposal comes at a politically opportune time, with Muni considering a controversial 25 cent raise in fares, and transit activists mounting an increasingly vocal campaign to shift Muni's budget difficulties away from the people who ride the buses.
Several long-term solutions to Muni's budget deficit have also been floated over the past few months, including the creation of a downtown "assessment district," which would essentially impose an additional tax on property owners. But that would have to be approved by two-thirds of the voters in that district and, if it were to pass, the money would not be seen for at least a year.
Additional longer term options include other taxes -- including an environmental impact fee for vehicles driving in The City; a local vehicle registration fee; an increase in the parking tax; a special parcel tax on properties within The City; and a local gas tax. All of those options would require approval by San Francisco voters, the Board of Supervisors or the California Legislature.
The first article describes a feeble attempt to raise more tax money while trying to secure the environmental vote, nothing more. People will not drive less because they are taxed on how much they drive; you don't drive anywhere these places unless you really need to, because you have a good chance of being stuck in traffic for over an hour. Tolls would simply cost drivers more, and do absolutely nothing to limit road use. The only way road use could be limited is if the tolls are high enough so that people eventually move away, and then there are fewer people to drive around, rather than a smaller percent of the population on the road at any given time.
The second article has a lot more for me to chew on. The same need to drive somewhere from the above paragraph apply to this.
Now, when you try to remove people from specific roads, they use a detour. A detour will almost always take longer than the route it replaced. This means that the traffic will simply be diverted to a different road. Also, because the detour takes longer, there will be more cars on the road at any given time. With more cars comes more congestion and pollution. Thus, the first two parts of " relieve congestion, clean up the air, and give money to Muni" have been ripped to shreds, as the toll would really do the exact opposite of what McGoldrick claims (except for raising money, it will certainly do that).
Those additional taxes look like they are targeting the city because the city has little other than commercial buildings (or at least I think it does). Thus, a tax on the metropolitan area would be a tax on "big business", which many Californians seem to despise.
What California really needs is to:
1: remove regulations on how high residential buildings can be built (this is what prevents giant apartment buildings from popping up just outside the city limits).
2: remove environmental regulations that prevent construction of anything. Half of San Francisco Bay is under regulations that prevent any development of the land, if Sowell's Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One is correct.
3: build more highways between highly populated areas like, say, Las Angeles and San Francisco (which I believe has only 1 highway, a very congested highway, running between them).
4: offer large subsidies for mass transportation companies and focus on improving the road network as a whole.
A big help would be to get rid of many of these activists, or at least stop listening to them. Those activists are pushing politicians to write laws that harm the city, so those politicians can be reelected.
I have an interesting new idea, and I would love some feedback as to whether it would work. In the election after a politician leaves office, the voters should get to choose whether or not to give the former politicians an additional pension. For example, if determining the pension for a president, Clinton's pension would have been voted on in 2004, as that was the next presidential election after Clinton took office.
This term-length gap would give a politician's long-term work to be seen comparatively clearly, and would be an incentive for potential politicians to seek only a single term and do the best the can to help their city/state/whatever in that term. Politicians who do not intend to seek a second term rarely make decisions based on popular opinion and what can get them more votes.
It would be nice to see how it works out. It would cost a lot overall, but tens of millions of dollars are nothing to the federal government, which spends close to $1 billion per hour.
posted by Chris at
11:18 PM
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