Hacker News Reader

Comment by whb07 | Hacker News Reader

What’s the story here? Seems like Koch Bros are against raising taxes. They aren’t “killing” anything.

Let’s assume the tax raise will only go to public transport. Let’s assume for now it’s a good plan and actually wanted by the public. The issue isn’t the previous assumptions but the fact that taxes will not be lowered afterwards.

So even after completion of the project, the tax that was put in place to raise revenues to fund the project will still remain in the books. That’s the insidious nature of government. Once it has it it will not let go.

View on HN

Well

> One of the mainstay companies of Koch Industries, the Kochs’ conglomerate, is a major producer of gasoline and asphalt, and also makes seatbelts, tires and other automotive parts. Even as Americans for Prosperity opposes public investment in transit, it supports spending tax money on highways and roads.

Also: stuff requires upkeep, consider the current state of the woefully unfunded NYC subway. You can’t just build it and expect it to stay in perfect condition forever.

> consider the current state of the woefully unfunded NYC subway

Everything I've read about the NYC Subway system indicates that it's funded more than adequately, but due to mismanagement, corruption, and cronyism, the funds walk out the door in the pockets of ghost workers.

Assuming the system wasn't awash with grift, is there evidence to suggest that NYC doesn't actually fund it adequately? NYC residents pay well above the national rate in taxes, and presumably those taxes are intended to fund transit. If the money taxed isn't being used to actually maintain the infrastructure, I think it supports OP's argument that the taxes haven't abated but the services being offered for them have.

Without getting into the ideological debate of whether publicly funded projects are good or bad, I think it's fair to assume that most people expect that when taxes are raised to fund transit, that the taxes raised will be used for transit, not to line the pockets of the friends and cohorts of who raised the taxes.

I don't think I've read the same things as you. Do you have sources for the cronyism and ghost workers?

Also, the tax levels in NYC don't necessarily relate to the levels of subway support (e.g., NY state contributes to the NYC subway).

> I think it's fair to assume that most people expect that when taxes are raised to fund transit, that the taxes raised will be used for transit, not to line the pockets of the friends and cohorts of who raised the taxes.

This is a straw man argument - the implication here is that the NYC subway's sole financial problem is corruption. Is that actually true?

Sources:

* https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

* https://jalopnik.com/heres-the-most-damning-report-yet-on-wh...

* https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/14/new-yorks-s...

> the implication here is that the NYC subway's sole financial problem is corruption. Is that actually true?

So, that isn't the assertion. The argument that taxes are raised for a project, then being diverted to general funds is a separate issue from the one of corruption, and speak more directly to OP's argument that "taxes don't go down", to which the rebuttal from GP was "Well, taxes shouldn't go down, because maintenance is a thing". If the taxes don't go down, and also aren't being used for the purpose they were raised, you have sort of a shell game.

That said, on the matter of corruption, here are a few quotes from the first source I linked:

    > The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as 
    > “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 
    > billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere 
    > in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on 
    > Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line 
    > to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5 
    > billion per mile, respectively.

    > The spending has taken place even as the M.T.A. has cut back on core
    > subway maintenance because, as The New York Times has documented, 
    > generations of politicians have diverted money from the transit 
    > authority and saddled it with debt.

I remember glancing at that NYT article. It's hard to prove these things, but they only peripherally imply the idea of 'ghost workers'.

I agree that it sounds like social connections are leading to small numbers of contractors, but the takeaway I saw is the lack of political will to manage contracting - these so-called 'soft' costs were on the order of 1/3 of the overall costs.

I didn't pick up on the duration of taxes argument - I see your point there.

> It's hard to prove these things, but they only peripherally imply the idea of 'ghost workers'.

https://jalopnik.com/ill-be-damned-feds-indict-new-york-city...

That doesn't prove all of the allegations from the earlier articles, for sure, but does confirm that the story wasn't made up from whole cloth.

> “Lokhandwala concealed his receipt of the bribe payments by having the contractors issue checks to shell bank accounts he controlled,” the DOJ said. “In exchange for the bribes, Lokhandwala promised to steer future work to the contractors and to expedite bureaucratic paperwork for their benefit. Lokhandwala threatened to bar the contractors from future projects if they did not continue to pay him.”

In addition, a large chunk of NYC's taxes (blue districts) wind up going to Albany and then redistributed upstate where tax revenue is lower (red districts) for things like highways and services.

You could use that argument to defund any infrastructure you wanted, existing or proposed.

In the long run, not funding infrastructure has the same effect as killing it.

Once a sizeable populist group decides that taxes are theft, it will frame every policy decision we make, until we destroy our once-great institutions.

There was a time when the USA dreamed big, believed in itself and invested in itself. We had a growth mindset.

We have all been told to "look out for number one." They say that our government is corrupt and incompetent. They say we should drown it in a bathtub like an unwanted kitten.

Some A+ fear mongering out there in the austerity universe.

Funny you mention fearmongering after

In the long run, not funding infrastructure has the same effect as killing it.

I suspect it's a little deeper than being against "raising taxes". If we say that way, we are hidden the real meaning.

The Koch brothers are, in my opinion, against any kind of redistribution. This is not surprising, I suppose, being them one of the richest people.

This narrative of "markets give everybody what they deserve" it's old like the world. Before markets the status quo was the will of God.

It's not about raising taxes, is about "should the community invest in itself?" or even "there is such thing as a community?".

They're not against raising taxes. They're for using taxpayer money to support their industries (see: roads, highways, cars, trucks, etc) but against using taxpayer money for things that might cause their industries to make less money (see: public transit).

They massively fund political campaigns with the intent of pushing the policies they want. They're fairly successful at it. It's perfectly reasonable to say that they're "killing" things they're pushing against.

Once it has it it will not let go.

Didn't your government just introduce sweeping tax reductions?

Fake tax reductions. It reduced taxes temporarily for some low and middle income folks. Increased them permanently for many middle income folks due to double taxation (state income taxes paid are purposely no longer tax deductible on federal income taxes specifically to hurt blue states). And permanently lowered them for very high income folks.

> What’s the story here? Seems like Koch Bros are against raising taxes. They aren’t “killing” anything.

Let's see them mount opposition for new highway projects, then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com