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Comment by endianswap | Hacker News Reader

Aren't tolls like this an incredibly regressive tax that further hurts the poor?

Use taxes such as highway tolls are among the most economically efficient ways to raise revenue to maintain and improve public goods. Since most tolling is electronic now, it's straightforward to provide a means-tested toll credit for people who would otherwise have trouble paying for their portion of the use of the expressway.

I think you need one more twist. If I'm poor, and I have a means-tested toll credit, then I have no incentive not to use the toll road. That is, the economic incentives you're trying to create don't apply to the poor. (Unless by "credit" you mean "I get to keep the cash if I don't use it", in which case my objection does not apply.)

Since that is "a general credit" is exactly what is needed for it to work, it is probably fair to assume that is what he meant :)

This is double speak, charging someone to use something is not a tax.

The fee to ride the bus/train is not called a tax, why would this be any different?

Roads need to stop being subsidized, it's the only thing that's going to give mass transit a chance to actually compete.

It's the overall idea of wealth transfers.

We're talking about two things at the same time: 1) A method to reduce traffic, 2) A method to move money from people into toll-road owners.

Systematically transferring money from the overall population to a subgroup is generally thought of as a tax.

This definition of "tax" is wrong at best, precisely backwards at worst. Most people don't own real estate, yet they still call it "property tax". Most people didn't die this year, yet they still call it "estate tax". Most people don't smoke, yet they still call it "cigarette tax". In every case, the people's representatives have found some group they can shake down on the people's behalf.

Sure, so when the police come to help you we should charge you a per-visit fee. It will be small, something poor people can't afford but rich people can afford easily, like $50. If you can't afford it, they won't go after the criminal who hurt you.

It's not regressive because charging someone to use something (like police services) is not a tax, after all.

The very point is that right now roads are paid by taxes, which are progressive, and people are suggesting replacing them with fees, which are regressive (without some additional scheme to account for this). A better solution would be subsidizing all public transit so it is free, which is progressive, not regressive. But will never solve the problem because it only incentivizes the poor to use transit.

If we stop subsidizing roads or make public transit free/cheaper then roads will be for the rich only, and public transit I'm sure will have millions poured into it and flourish. The government is, after all, historically very responsive to needs and pain points that are only felt by the poor and minorities.

We need to provide funding for transit first. We need to get middle-upper class people riding it, people who vote, are white, donate to political campaigns, know powerful people, etc which specifically means making it fast, efficient, reliable. Look at places like DC and NYC and SF/bayarea where middle-class businessmen take transit because it's the easiest, most efficient method and is fairly reliable.

I think the idea is that sales and gasoline taxes are already used to pay for roads and are already regressive, so you're replacing one regressive tax with another, which is (perhaps) no worse than before.

On the other hand, if you're replacing income tax with tolls or just raising tolls without lowering other taxes, then it would be regressive.

It's mentioned in the article.

> This objection also ignores just how inequitable and dysfunctional our current system is. Tolls may disproportionately burden the poor, but so do sales taxes, gas taxes and every other way we pay for roads.

Is this false equivalence?

I'm not sure what the technical term would be, but I think it's less about false equivalence but more that saying that other things are bad doesn't justify making another bad thing.

"This proposed policy will make things worse, but there are other policies that make things worse, so therefore this policy cannot be criticized on those grounds".

Wat.

The other way we pay for roads is through sales taxes (aka the most regressive tax). At least tolls are use-based, rather than on the general population.

The bastion of socialism, France, has mostly-toll freeways (they also have non-toll routes nationale and routes départementales in addition to more local routes communales)

Of course, they do also actually plan their roadways nationally and region-wide whereas in the US, it seems "city planning" is an oxymoron.

Planners generally aim for a utilitarian investigation of the effects. Tolls impact individual trips, but are also shown (in certain use-cases, like congestion charges) to improve traffic flow and increase transit use - time spent stuck in traffic increases fuel use and pollution, and slows everyone's average time per trip. In the extreme traffic case of overflowing gridlock, as often happens in developing-world megacities, everyone loses.

The arguments are very similar around taxes on cigarettes or soda: A painful measure that may save money or improve health outcomes in the long-term. In the end, it's just one more tool that has to be used judiciously.

Less so than existing mechanisms for paying for roads http://www.its.ucla.edu/infographic-road-pricing/

Added: that's exactly what the article links to, oops. I read the article in reader mode (because it blocks adblockers) and failed to notice.

The notion that road pricing is a regressive tax on the poor smacks of elitism. The hidden message seems to be "poor people don't have anywhere important to be." But lower income people were surveyed an they in fact desired road pricing just as much--if not more than--any other population segment because of the need to efficiently travel to multiple jobs and daycare sites efficiently, for instance.

It reminds me of the "poor people shouldn't have nice things" superiority complex that breeds thoughts like "poor people shouldn't buy smartphones and flatscreens!", when those things are quite inexpensive compared to actual ongoing expenses of rent and food. And there are many factors other than road pricing, such as cost of vehicle, fuel, and parking.

The article covers that.

Here is the article covering that:

"Tolls may disproportionately burden the poor, but so do sales taxes, gas taxes and every other way we pay for roads."

It then goes on to sort-of suggest that despite this new pain the net benefit will be better for "working-class" people......somehow. No thoughts were offered on how to keep the toll revenue from just padding out civil servant pensions and benefits while the traffic and roads muddle on.

As I understand it, the idea is that if you're already collecting sales and gasoline taxes to pay for roads, collecting the same amount of money through tolls instead isn't any more regressive (it replaces one regressive tax with another), plus it cuts down on traffic.

On the other hand, replacing income tax with tolls really would be regressive.

(But I don't know enough about taxes to say if that's really true.)

It covers that rather poorly:

Experts have pointed to tolls as a traffic solution for decades, yet building political support for road fees continues to be a challenge — the most common complaint being: "Oh, so only rich people can drive?"

This critique ignores the fact that working Americans often suffer the most severely from the impacts of poor mobility. Working-class parents who are late to pick up their kids from day care, for example, often pay severe financial penalties. Having the option to reach their destination quickly could actually save them money. In fact, experience with dynamic tolling in the United States has shown that people of all income levels use these lanes. This objection also ignores just how inequitable and dysfunctional our current system is. Tolls may disproportionately burden the poor, but so do sales taxes, gas taxes and every other way we pay for roads.

So the LA Times defines ≠rich as "working/working-class Americans," and ultimately concludes that "tolls may disproportionately burden the poor, but be so do sales taxes, gas taxes, and every other way we pay for roads."

So what's one more regressive tax–"inequitable and dysfunctional"–to the poor?

The LA Times's internally-consistent value system is well-matched by its penetrating insight.

Scale them by income?

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