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Two footnotes on this article: 1. The problems it highlights can be reduced to low tax revenues. Our infrastructure is crumbling because we do not collect enou

by soyiuz 11y ago

Two footnotes on this article: 1. The problems it highlights can be reduced to low tax revenues. Our infrastructure is crumbling because we do not collect enough taxes to subsidize it. Things like roads and trains cannot (and should not) pay for themselves---they are a public good. The train might be empty at night, but the ability to take a train home prevents drunk driving, for example. One cannot put a monitory value on services like that, they speak to our collective quality of life. The SF transit situation is the direct consequence of a failing tax base. The wealth of the local tech industry is not "trickling down" to improve city infrastructure, in proportion to the industry's growth. 2. Re: the conversation about walk-ability of cities. The key concept here is density. We need to value density as it allows for more compact living. Instead, municipalities in places like the Bay Area consistently vote against new construction and against zoning laws that would allow for taller, more densely populated buildings/neighborhoods. The law of supply and demand says increase the supply of housing to make something affordable. This is not some mysterious process: there's simply no political will on the part of existing inhabitants to "devalue" their residences by increasing the supply in the housing market.

petewailes 11y ago
I'm assuming you're from the US... The problem isn't a lack of taxes, it's where you guys spend it all.
- DigitalJack 11y ago
  fully agree with this (US native)
- cylinder 11y ago
  And when it is spent on infrastructure, the US leads most of the world in being the most expensive place to build public transportation, with projects often taking far longer. I blame corruption, poor governance and deep cultural disdain for organization and order. Don't even get me started on the California decision to build HSR between SF and LA. What a joke that one is.
  - samsolomon 11y ago
    More amazing—a half century ago, the U.S. was undertaking some incredible public works projects.
    - newjersey 11y ago
      Edit: sorry, I was continuing from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11356350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11356350 We spent four billion dollars for a train station. And then we raised ticket prices on the path train for a beautiful station nobody wants. Why? > To win these concessions, Larry Silverstein took advantage of the Port Authority’s eagerness to show some progress on the site. He played hardball with the government from 2004 to 2006, a period of acrimonious negotiations between Silverstein Properties and the Port Authority over who would be responsible for what aspects of the site. > His lobbyists were the best of the best. He hired Global Strategy Group, whose clients have included Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo, to lobby for him, along with David Samson, who would go on to become the chairman of the Port Authority. > Given the choice between making Larry Silverstein pay his way and trying to get the site finished as quickly as possible, the Port chose the more expensive option. (Whether it worked is debatable—3 World Trade Center is a stump, and 2 World Trade Center is nonexistent; both are awaiting tenants to restart construction, with delivery now slated for 2015 and 2016.) The feds were throwing even more money at the Port Authority—nearly $2.9 billion—and it was the path of least resistance. http://observer.com/2013/05/pathfail/ http://observer.com/2013/05/pathfail/ It is mind boggling that a seat on a train to cross the hudson river costs as much as a ticket on the MTA. I don't have any inside information and I don't know who to blame for this (perhaps there is no point in blaming anyone other, everyone did what was in their personal best interest) but this does bring a point that we can't just throw money at infrastructure problems. We have to be judicious about it. The twitter feed of @pathtrain https://twitter.com/pathtrain https://twitter.com/pathtrain is littered with problems of signal failure on a bridge on the Newark World Trade Center line. I bet they could use some of that four billion dollars to fix that issue. But of course, the federal money is not for trivial things like that. They have a monument to build! I guess this is something we need to think about in many government projects, not just at the federal level. We say that we spend more than $12k? per child in our school system and raise pitchforks and say the teachers aren't performing well enough for all the money we pour into the school system. Well, perhaps we are not pouring money at the right places. And no, I'm not advocating we get rid of public funding and make school administrators or teachers start a go fund me for their salaries or costs. That would not solve anything. These are difficult questions for me. I don't think our politicians and bureaucrats are making the right call here but I don't think it is right to leave these questions up to a ballot measure either.
- trhway 11y ago
  > it's where you guys spend it all. http://www.businessinsider.com/gross-fixed-investment-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/gross-fixed-investment-2013-8 . Infrastructure-schmustructure, none of these guys can afford a program like F-35!
  - nikanj 11y ago
    If only we had a transit-industrial complex instead
    - khuey 11y ago
      We do. Look at the cost of the WTC PATH Station.
    - douche 11y ago
      We need to invent some defense-related shibboleth that would build us some infrastructure. It worked for the interstate highway system...
- imglorp 11y ago
  And not just stupid spending (ie not on r&d or infrastructure), but also loads of government friction, costing yet more.
- soyiuz 11y ago
  Probably right, but we are talking about municipal taxes.
  - petewailes 11y ago
    Sure, but isn't that part of the issue? Infrastructure is a national issue, not just a local one. It should draw from the tax pot as such.
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  It's more like how the money is being spent. The political landscape is totally binary so the only question allowed is whether something gets done or not. Once the decision has been made it gets done in the least efficient way and no further questions are asked. Or it gets stopped. Just look at Obamacare: There is no public discussion about the details that could use improvement. Either it's all in or people want to totally cancel it. Nothing in between.
- jahewson 11y ago
  You've got to separate federal taxes from state taxes to understand how the US spends its money. In general the federal government is well funded and squanders its money on wasteful and unnecessary defence projects, such as having more aircraft carriers than conventional military wisdom says that they need. Such things don't enhance the US's defensive situation. The F-35 is another great example. But states are generally underfunded, because lowering taxes is always popular and easy to do in state politics. State budgets are dominated by boring things such as education which an aging electorate often cares little about. And states are always in competition with their neighbours with regards to taxes, so raising sales tax might actually push more shopping across the state line to your neighbour. Couple that with the situation in California where any tax increase has to be voted on by the general public as a "proposition", and you get a scenario where adequate state funding becomes almost impossible.
  - cbhl 11y ago
    We should put a proposition on the ballet to repeal that anti-tax-increase proposition, once and for all.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    Don't equate spending with good governance. New York figured out the tax collection thing, and our schools and other infrastructure cost more and work poorly. Also, the Feds fund a wide variety of state operations, especially in social services and transport.
    - douche 11y ago
      > Also, the Feds fund a wide variety of state operations, especially in social services and transport. And education too. Money supposedly ear-marked for special education and free-and-reduced lunch floats many rural school districts; maybe there's a similar story for urban districts, but I wouldn't know about those.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    80% of the federal budget is stuff other than military and VA benefits.
dkopi 11y ago
1. The ability to take a taxi or uber home also prevents drunk driving. Responsible drinking or having a designated driver also prevents drunk driving. Even if you were to insist the government subsidizes "get home late from a bar without driving", Empty night trains are probably one of the least cost effective ways of doing that. Personally, I just walk home from a bar. That prevents drunk driving since I don't need cars, taxis or trains just to get a beer. 2. Density indeed helps increase walk-ability. But it's also about mixed used development. Jane Jacobs talks a lot about this in "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". If zoning laws divide the city into a "business area", a "living area" and "an entertainment area", Density isn't going to save you from having to drive between those areas.
- aqme28 11y ago
  It's far more expensive to take a taxi/uber or to leave near bars than it is to take public transit home. Those are not realistic options for everyone.
  - dkopi 11y ago
    That's because you're comparing only the cost paid directly by the passenger. Not the total cost of operating a train line that gets heavily subsidized by tax payers. Mass transit makes a lot of sense. It can even be profitable when you have a lot of people going in the same direction at the same time. But whenever you're on a really empty bus or train - someone else is footing the bill for your very expensive ride home.
    - lukeschlather 11y ago
      When properly supported mass transit is much cheaper than individual cars. BART is under $5/passenger trip. http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/transit-system-efficiency http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/transit-system-efficiency
    - barney54 11y ago
      Mass transit can make sense, but it isn't profitable. Very few public transit systems in the world are profitable. Bus systems are more likely to be profitable. https://www.quora.com/Which-public-transportation-systems-make-a-profit https://www.quora.com/Which-public-transportation-systems-ma...
forrestthewoods 11y ago
> One cannot put a monitory value on services like that You sure as shit can. Budgets are fixed. Budget consumption is zero sum. Maybe in fantasy land we could spend unlimited resources on trains and unicorns, but in the real world we have to measure the cost-benefit of all expenditures.
- soyiuz 11y ago
  I just mean that some things do not need to turn a profit. Of course you are right about budgets being fixed and priorities weighed with specific numbers attached.
jkimmel 11y ago
>The SF transit situation is the direct consequence of a failing tax base. The wealth of the local tech industry is not "trickling down" to improve city infrastructure, in proportion to the industry's growth. I'm not sure this is true. The city budget has grown substantially, now ~$9B [1]. The problem is we don't spend it on transit infrastructure, and when we do invest, we get financially mismanaged projects like the central subway [2]. [1] http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/san-franciscos-incredible-expanding-budget http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/san-franciscos-i... [2] http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/covering-their-tracks-the-central-subway-project-buries-millions-in-a-deep-dark-place/Content?oid=2949067 http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/covering-their-tracks-t...
- soyiuz 11y ago
  The market more than doubled since 2005. An increase in the city budget from $5.3b to $9b is not that impressive in that context. They would get that if they simply held an unmanaged index fund. You would expect more growth in the bay area and better redistribution of the tax revenue. Mismanagement of public funds is bad, agreed.
  - khuey 11y ago
    The city budget is a yearly flow of cash. You can't directly compare that to equity markets, when equity pricing is at its simplest the discounted future cash flow for eternity.
    - soyiuz 11y ago
      Good point. Still, the city budget is in some sense tied to the market. The unemployment rate almost halved since 2010. Per capita income almost doubled since 2000. Apple revenues alone tripled in the last five years. You'd expect the local municipalities to cash in on the taxes.
      - wbl 11y ago
        Cities can't impose local income taxes as it is politically difficult.. Prop 13 means they can't get money from increases in rents, and they don't want to build more anyway. As a result cities don't see the gains from booms in the way they would in other regions of the country.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
Whether or not something is a public good is a matter of technology. Trains are definitively a private good - they are rivalrous (you and I can't simultaneously occupy the same seat) and excludible (don't pay, they don't let you ride). Roads are also rivalrous (you and I can't simultaneously occupy the same piece of pavement) and excludible (don't pay gas taxes, you get no gas, you can't ride). If gas taxes were impractical, roads might be a public good. We also collect plenty of taxes for transit. Our taxes just buy us 1/5-1/100 as much as every other country in the world, because our transit systems are incredibly inefficient. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comparative-subway-construction-costs-revised/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-construction-costs/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...
- soyiuz 11y ago
  Looking into the links you sent. Not sure if I am on board with "whether or not something is a public good is a matter of technology." I would say it is a matter of shared values and ideals. When you describe trains, you are talking about individual seats which are rivalrous, right? The train as a whole is a public good: it benefits everybody, has large positive externalities, and without subsidies it is not likely to be supported for profit. It is not rivalrous as a whole.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    It's true that politicians talking about shared values and ideals can turn simple private goods into nightmarish public ones (e.g. US medicine). Have politicians created dumb laws like "the conductor may not kick someone off the train even if they don't pay" or "long trips must cost the same as short ones"? The train is merely an intermediate capital good used to provide train seats. It's private at the level of capital goods which is also the level at which it's paid for - only one railway can use a piece of rolling stock (rivalrous) and that railway can prevent other railways from using it (excludible). You might as well say that a house or a car is a public good, since they are merely capital goods that provide a stream of an underlying consumer good (space to live, road trips). What are the positive externalities of a train? If anything, it's externalities seem to be negative - it creates pollution and noise. (It might be less negative than driving but that's a different claim.)
jensen123 11y ago
> Re: the conversation about walk-ability of cities. The key concept here is density. We need to value density as it allows for more compact living. Another thing that perhaps needs to be valued more is sound insulation. I currently live in an apartment in a dense, walk-able city in Europe. However, I'm tempted to buy myself a house and a car, because I'm so sick and tired of all the noise that comes from living in an apartment in a dense area (neighbors, construction nearby, drunk people late at night etc.). Without good sound insulation, I don't think density works, although maybe it's just me who are more sensitive to this than other people.
- drabiega 11y ago
  It's interesting that you say that. In an earlier conversation on density and walk-able neighborhoods, I seem to recall a number of people from Europe saying that noise wasn't as much of a problem as in dense parts of the US because of different construction traditions. (Europe is a diverse place, of course, so it might just be down to regional differences.)
  - jensen123 11y ago
    That could be. It's especially renovations in the same building where I live that has been the problem here. I'm guessing this is a bigger problem (more renovations!) in a large building, than a small one.
    - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
      Regarding renovations: whenever someone takes a rotary hammer to concrete, it will be fairly noisy no matter how good the sound proofing is. That sound will travel in the entire structure even if the building is 400 feet wide.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Any apartment or house old enough to have plaster walls will be much more soundproof. That stuff is dense and heavy and it's usually at least an inch thick, more than sheetrock/drywall.
malcolmgreaves 11y ago
I agree it's a tax revenue problem. However, as a CA resident living in the bay area with a tech salary, I can attest that _taxation_ isn't the problem. An unfortunate reality is that our budgets are not being spent well. In particular, BART has some serious high-cost issues. For one, the automated trains have operators whose total compensation is an average of $130k yearly. [1] There are terrible, ineffective managers, directors, and executives that are guilty of mismanagement and greed [2]. soyiuz, you are absolutely right: BART needs more money. It also needs new people and a radical overhaul to update a system operating on 40 year old designs and assumptions. ---- [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/are-bart-workers-taking-us-for-a-ride.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/are-bar... [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23416601/barts-top-paid-worker-2012-never-worked-day http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23416601/barts-top-paid-worker...
- soyiuz 11y ago
  Agreed! The cure for mismanagement should be more transparency and more algorithmic government (along with testing)---a topic for another conversation.
- Aloha 11y ago
  high cost issues are endemic to the bay area, not just to BART
- arjie 11y ago
  About half that money is in their healthcare and other benefits plans. Worth keeping that in mind. They're not walking home with $130k.
chiph 11y ago
Around 20% of the motor fuels tax ends up in the general fund, and not the highway trust fund. Your legislators can increase highway/transit infrastructure spending by that amount, but won't pull funding from other programs that have grown dependent on it. You should talk to them about this. The article briefly touched on it, but as car owners transition to non-petroleum powered vehicles, the motor fuels revenue has nowhere to go but down. So the current taxation basis of gallons consumed will become unworkable. Taxing based on miles traveled has privacy implications (they will need to monitor your driving to assess the tax). A monthly road-tax based on vehicle size/weight/capacity might be the only way to keep highways funded. To keep transit systems like BART funded, they will have to support it by taxing the local population, whether they own a car or not (remove the dependence on the highway trust fund).
rrrrtttt 11y ago
The glorious state of California has the highest taxes in the nation and is the home of the tech industry. If wealth isn't trickling down, it's because it is being wasted.
- zach 11y ago
  Twelfth-highest, as it happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United...
- jahewson 11y ago
  Actually California has the 4th highest taxes in the nation behind New York, New Jersey, and Conneticut. It has the highest income tax, but that's because its other taxes are relatively low, in particular property taxes which were evicerated by Prop 13. California's current tax system is actually regressive, with the poorer section of society shouldering more of the tax burden than the richer segment. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Taxes-101/States-with-the-Highest-and-Lowest-Taxes/INF23232.html https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Taxes-101/Sta... Also the tech industry holds an awful lot of wealth outside the US, in tax havens such as Ireland. And while taxes in California are high by US standards, many European countries (with excellent public transport systems) tax at higher rate still, for example sales tax in the UK is 20%. The state of California is chronically underfunded because it does a poor job of taxing the people who actually have money. Not because the money isn't well spent (some 40% of it goes on education alone).
  - SilasX 11y ago
    >The state of California is chronically underfunded because it does a poor job of taxing the people who actually have money. So does everyone else. The reason it's so hard to tax the wealth of the rich is not because they're masters of political manipulation but because they're -- as you note -- much better at (legally) restructuring their activities so that the wealth does not pass through a nexus that a given jurisdiction controls.
  - disgruntledphd2 11y ago
PantaloonFlames 11y ago
> We need to value density as it allows for more compact living. rack em and stack em, eh? recent research finds that people living in low-density suburbs are happier than people living in cities. People living in rural areas are happiest of all. http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11673 http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11673 We can promote more "compact living" but the data shows it degrades human happiness.
- ch4s3 11y ago
  Serious question, why do rural areas have higher suicide rates per capita?
  - xnfndnx 11y ago
    Arguments presented without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. The guy you're responding to cited his, please cite yours.
    - cmurf 11y ago
      http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/rural-suicide.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/rural-suicide.aspx http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-growing-risk-of-suicide-in-rural-america/387313/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-growin... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/rural-youth-suicides_n_6867420.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/rural-youth-suicide...
    - crymer11 11y ago
      http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2195006 http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=21950...
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      That wasn't an argument. It was an uncontroversial factual statement. Citing things is nice, but you can also just google 'suicide rural'.
    - 11y ago
barney54 11y ago
There is no reason that roads cannot pay for themselves. Gas tax revenue comes close to paying for roads when it is spent on roads.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  Define "comes close". In California the fuel tax covers less than half the maintenance cost and none of the capital costs of the roads.
  - barney54 11y ago
    You aren't including federal gas taxes.
bmm6o 11y ago
> Re: the conversation about walk-ability of cities. The key concept here is density. It does require density, but not so much that you need buildings more than a few stories high. Much more important is zoning that allows shops and restaurants to be mixed in with housing, and not wasting those few square blocks within walking distance with parking lots and private yards.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
> The problems it highlights can be reduced to low tax revenues. Our infrastructure is crumbling because we do not collect enough taxes to subsidize it. This is a double whammy, because so many urban areas basically came close to the brink of death during the mid 20th century and have only revitalized in the last 30-ish years or so. That means there's a massive infrastructure and services "debt" in most cities, so they have the burden of playing catch up as well. > Things like roads and trains cannot (and should not) pay for themselves---they are a public good. The train might be empty at night, but the ability to take a train home prevents drunk driving, for example. One cannot put a monitory value on services like that, they speak to our collective quality of life. The SF transit situation is the direct consequence of a failing tax base. The wealth of the local tech industry is not "trickling down" to improve city infrastructure, in proportion to the industry's growth. I strongly agree with this and wish it was more of a priority (sadly, our political system is so broken everyone is focused on other sideshows and wedge issues). Public transit is really a strong societal good, and an equalizer. Good public transit is a big factor in enabling the poorest and least advantaged to find jobs wherever they exist while keeping their housing costs low and also enabling things like continuing education and so on. It's a major component in that whole "lifting yourself up by your bootstraps" thing that people think is so important.
cbd1984 11y ago
Also, public transit is by no means terrible. The premise is just fatally flawed.
cowardlydragon 11y ago
10) And THAT is because of the systemic starving of government by the ultra-rich. 20) That would probably require a sprawl tax. The wannabe rich in suburbs ... well goto 10
dcposch 11y ago
> Our infrastructure is crumbling because we do not collect enough taxes to subsidize it. That's just not true. We have crumbling infrastructure because we refuse to prioritize it due to political dysfunction. If youre a surgeon or a lawyer living in San Francisco, your marginal tax rate is 39.5% federal + 11% state. Over 50%. You also pay 8.75% VAT on a lot of common purchases and 1% property tax. This is not a low tax environment. Hong Kong has a 15% flat tax and yet they have vastly better infrastructure than we do. Singapore is a similar story. Even Istanbul, with per capita income and tax collection thats a small fraction of ours, has a great light rail system that puts Bart to shame. Istikal Street is incredible--imagine Market and Mission put together, and pedestrian only. It is a beautiful city. So how do these places do it? * They respect and prioritize infrastructure * Their governments are less gridlocked * They value density and walkability * They have fewer NIMBYs, with much less power to obstruct * They're less lawsuit-friendly. In the Bay every big infra project spends time and money fighting lawsuits. * They have leaner bureaucracies. BART has tons of six figure salaries on the payroll for random adminstrative positions.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  if you're a surgeon or lawyer (or any other kind of high end services professional) living in SF and making any kind of significant money, most of your earnings are probably not coming on a W2 in the form of a salary. you're probably a partner or a shareholder in a business and get a dividend or a distribution from the business as a K-1 or a 1099-DIV/INT, and your effective tax rate is going to be way, way lower than 50%, probably closer to 20% or below. because you own part of the businesses a huge amount of your expenses are either deductible or simply covered by the business, which then deducts it from its earnings (which are probably getting passed through to you directly). lunch and some dinners, ambiguous trips to major cities, car lease, laptops, phones, christmas gifts, etc. also, a lot of people just straight up buy shit for their house on the business dime like nice TVs, furniture, etc. field audit? move it to the office. sales (you call it VAT .. okay) tax is probably high, but it's optional, you don't have to actually buy anything. also, you can buy stuff in cheaper places, especially if you and own a second home in a lower tax area (which many people do).
rahimnathwani 11y ago
"Things like roads and trains ... are a public good." No, they're not. From Wikipedia (which matches what I learnt in economics class): "... a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others." Trains are definitely excludable (can't get on without a ticket) and rivalrous (the train can get full, meaning no space for additional passengers). Roads are obviously rivalrous (gridlock!) but you could argue the extent to which they are excludable. Sure, there are toll roads, but it would be hard for you to exclude me from using the road in front of my house. With technology, though, you could make me pay for usage according to some arbitrarily-designed tariff, though, which would force me to self-exclude if I weren't willing to pay the price.
- kennywinker 11y ago
  Those a mucky definitions. Roads are excludable in just the same way as trains... you don't have a car, you can't get on roads. That's economic exclusion, and a bigger excluder than transit fares in most urban settings (not to mention requiring a license, no DUIs, etc). A good transit system has very low fares, as they try to include everyone even the poorest people. A good transit system also has very rarely full trains, and more coming along in 5min if that one's full. If you're arguing that roads are a public good, then you absolutely must accept that transit is one... and any rational person would agree that they are a far greater good than roads and highways (at least, within the urban centers).
  - rahimnathwani 11y ago
    "Those a mucky definitions." There was exactly one definition in my comment: that of a public good. The remainder was my reasoning for why roads and trains do not fit that definition of a public good. With which part(s) do you disagree? "If you're arguing that roads are a public good..." I'm not arguing that. That's why I started my comment with "No, they're not". I'm not sure how to respond to the rest of your comment, as your main point (that public transit is good) is orthogonal to mine.
ajmurmann 11y ago
Living in the suburbs is also highly subsidized since the suburbs have enormous infrastructure costs that are hidden. See http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html
seivan 11y ago
That's interesting, how do you explain Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan? Lower taxes but better public transport?

by soyiuz 11y ago

petewailes 11y ago

I'm assuming you're from the US... The problem isn't a lack of taxes, it's where you guys spend it all.

DigitalJack 11y ago
fully agree with this (US native)
cylinder 11y ago
And when it is spent on infrastructure, the US leads most of the world in being the most expensive place to build public transportation, with projects often taking far longer. I blame corruption, poor governance and deep cultural disdain for organization and order. Don't even get me started on the California decision to build HSR between SF and LA. What a joke that one is.
- samsolomon 11y ago
  More amazing—a half century ago, the U.S. was undertaking some incredible public works projects.
  - newjersey 11y ago
    Edit: sorry, I was continuing from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11356350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11356350 We spent four billion dollars for a train station. And then we raised ticket prices on the path train for a beautiful station nobody wants. Why? > To win these concessions, Larry Silverstein took advantage of the Port Authority’s eagerness to show some progress on the site. He played hardball with the government from 2004 to 2006, a period of acrimonious negotiations between Silverstein Properties and the Port Authority over who would be responsible for what aspects of the site. > His lobbyists were the best of the best. He hired Global Strategy Group, whose clients have included Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo, to lobby for him, along with David Samson, who would go on to become the chairman of the Port Authority. > Given the choice between making Larry Silverstein pay his way and trying to get the site finished as quickly as possible, the Port chose the more expensive option. (Whether it worked is debatable—3 World Trade Center is a stump, and 2 World Trade Center is nonexistent; both are awaiting tenants to restart construction, with delivery now slated for 2015 and 2016.) The feds were throwing even more money at the Port Authority—nearly $2.9 billion—and it was the path of least resistance. http://observer.com/2013/05/pathfail/ http://observer.com/2013/05/pathfail/ It is mind boggling that a seat on a train to cross the hudson river costs as much as a ticket on the MTA. I don't have any inside information and I don't know who to blame for this (perhaps there is no point in blaming anyone other, everyone did what was in their personal best interest) but this does bring a point that we can't just throw money at infrastructure problems. We have to be judicious about it. The twitter feed of @pathtrain https://twitter.com/pathtrain https://twitter.com/pathtrain is littered with problems of signal failure on a bridge on the Newark World Trade Center line. I bet they could use some of that four billion dollars to fix that issue. But of course, the federal money is not for trivial things like that. They have a monument to build! I guess this is something we need to think about in many government projects, not just at the federal level. We say that we spend more than $12k? per child in our school system and raise pitchforks and say the teachers aren't performing well enough for all the money we pour into the school system. Well, perhaps we are not pouring money at the right places. And no, I'm not advocating we get rid of public funding and make school administrators or teachers start a go fund me for their salaries or costs. That would not solve anything. These are difficult questions for me. I don't think our politicians and bureaucrats are making the right call here but I don't think it is right to leave these questions up to a ballot measure either.
trhway 11y ago
> it's where you guys spend it all. http://www.businessinsider.com/gross-fixed-investment-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/gross-fixed-investment-2013-8 . Infrastructure-schmustructure, none of these guys can afford a program like F-35!
- nikanj 11y ago
  If only we had a transit-industrial complex instead
  - khuey 11y ago
    We do. Look at the cost of the WTC PATH Station.
  - douche 11y ago
    We need to invent some defense-related shibboleth that would build us some infrastructure. It worked for the interstate highway system...
imglorp 11y ago
And not just stupid spending (ie not on r&d or infrastructure), but also loads of government friction, costing yet more.
soyiuz 11y ago
Probably right, but we are talking about municipal taxes.
- petewailes 11y ago
  Sure, but isn't that part of the issue? Infrastructure is a national issue, not just a local one. It should draw from the tax pot as such.
maxxxxx 11y ago
It's more like how the money is being spent. The political landscape is totally binary so the only question allowed is whether something gets done or not. Once the decision has been made it gets done in the least efficient way and no further questions are asked. Or it gets stopped. Just look at Obamacare: There is no public discussion about the details that could use improvement. Either it's all in or people want to totally cancel it. Nothing in between.
jahewson 11y ago
You've got to separate federal taxes from state taxes to understand how the US spends its money. In general the federal government is well funded and squanders its money on wasteful and unnecessary defence projects, such as having more aircraft carriers than conventional military wisdom says that they need. Such things don't enhance the US's defensive situation. The F-35 is another great example. But states are generally underfunded, because lowering taxes is always popular and easy to do in state politics. State budgets are dominated by boring things such as education which an aging electorate often cares little about. And states are always in competition with their neighbours with regards to taxes, so raising sales tax might actually push more shopping across the state line to your neighbour. Couple that with the situation in California where any tax increase has to be voted on by the general public as a "proposition", and you get a scenario where adequate state funding becomes almost impossible.
- cbhl 11y ago
  We should put a proposition on the ballet to repeal that anti-tax-increase proposition, once and for all.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  Don't equate spending with good governance. New York figured out the tax collection thing, and our schools and other infrastructure cost more and work poorly. Also, the Feds fund a wide variety of state operations, especially in social services and transport.
  - douche 11y ago
    > Also, the Feds fund a wide variety of state operations, especially in social services and transport. And education too. Money supposedly ear-marked for special education and free-and-reduced lunch floats many rural school districts; maybe there's a similar story for urban districts, but I wouldn't know about those.
- rayiner 11y ago
  80% of the federal budget is stuff other than military and VA benefits.

dkopi 11y ago

1. The ability to take a taxi or uber home also prevents drunk driving. Responsible drinking or having a designated driver also prevents drunk driving. Even if you were to insist the government subsidizes "get home late from a bar without driving", Empty night trains are probably one of the least cost effective ways of doing that. Personally, I just walk home from a bar. That prevents drunk driving since I don't need cars, taxis or trains just to get a beer. 2. Density indeed helps increase walk-ability. But it's also about mixed used development. Jane Jacobs talks a lot about this in "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". If zoning laws divide the city into a "business area", a "living area" and "an entertainment area", Density isn't going to save you from having to drive between those areas.

aqme28 11y ago
It's far more expensive to take a taxi/uber or to leave near bars than it is to take public transit home. Those are not realistic options for everyone.
- dkopi 11y ago
  That's because you're comparing only the cost paid directly by the passenger. Not the total cost of operating a train line that gets heavily subsidized by tax payers. Mass transit makes a lot of sense. It can even be profitable when you have a lot of people going in the same direction at the same time. But whenever you're on a really empty bus or train - someone else is footing the bill for your very expensive ride home.
  - lukeschlather 11y ago
    When properly supported mass transit is much cheaper than individual cars. BART is under $5/passenger trip. http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/transit-system-efficiency http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/transit-system-efficiency
  - barney54 11y ago
    Mass transit can make sense, but it isn't profitable. Very few public transit systems in the world are profitable. Bus systems are more likely to be profitable. https://www.quora.com/Which-public-transportation-systems-make-a-profit https://www.quora.com/Which-public-transportation-systems-ma...

forrestthewoods 11y ago

> One cannot put a monitory value on services like that You sure as shit can. Budgets are fixed. Budget consumption is zero sum. Maybe in fantasy land we could spend unlimited resources on trains and unicorns, but in the real world we have to measure the cost-benefit of all expenditures.

soyiuz 11y ago
I just mean that some things do not need to turn a profit. Of course you are right about budgets being fixed and priorities weighed with specific numbers attached.

jkimmel 11y ago

>The SF transit situation is the direct consequence of a failing tax base. The wealth of the local tech industry is not "trickling down" to improve city infrastructure, in proportion to the industry's growth. I'm not sure this is true. The city budget has grown substantially, now ~$9B [1]. The problem is we don't spend it on transit infrastructure, and when we do invest, we get financially mismanaged projects like the central subway [2]. [1] http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/san-franciscos-incredible-expanding-budget http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/san-franciscos-i... [2] http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/covering-their-tracks-the-central-subway-project-buries-millions-in-a-deep-dark-place/Content?oid=2949067 http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/covering-their-tracks-t...

soyiuz 11y ago
The market more than doubled since 2005. An increase in the city budget from $5.3b to $9b is not that impressive in that context. They would get that if they simply held an unmanaged index fund. You would expect more growth in the bay area and better redistribution of the tax revenue. Mismanagement of public funds is bad, agreed.
- khuey 11y ago
  The city budget is a yearly flow of cash. You can't directly compare that to equity markets, when equity pricing is at its simplest the discounted future cash flow for eternity.
  - soyiuz 11y ago
    Good point. Still, the city budget is in some sense tied to the market. The unemployment rate almost halved since 2010. Per capita income almost doubled since 2000. Apple revenues alone tripled in the last five years. You'd expect the local municipalities to cash in on the taxes.
    - wbl 11y ago
      Cities can't impose local income taxes as it is politically difficult.. Prop 13 means they can't get money from increases in rents, and they don't want to build more anyway. As a result cities don't see the gains from booms in the way they would in other regions of the country.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Whether or not something is a public good is a matter of technology. Trains are definitively a private good - they are rivalrous (you and I can't simultaneously occupy the same seat) and excludible (don't pay, they don't let you ride). Roads are also rivalrous (you and I can't simultaneously occupy the same piece of pavement) and excludible (don't pay gas taxes, you get no gas, you can't ride). If gas taxes were impractical, roads might be a public good. We also collect plenty of taxes for transit. Our taxes just buy us 1/5-1/100 as much as every other country in the world, because our transit systems are incredibly inefficient. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comparative-subway-construction-costs-revised/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-construction-costs/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...

soyiuz 11y ago
Looking into the links you sent. Not sure if I am on board with "whether or not something is a public good is a matter of technology." I would say it is a matter of shared values and ideals. When you describe trains, you are talking about individual seats which are rivalrous, right? The train as a whole is a public good: it benefits everybody, has large positive externalities, and without subsidies it is not likely to be supported for profit. It is not rivalrous as a whole.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  It's true that politicians talking about shared values and ideals can turn simple private goods into nightmarish public ones (e.g. US medicine). Have politicians created dumb laws like "the conductor may not kick someone off the train even if they don't pay" or "long trips must cost the same as short ones"? The train is merely an intermediate capital good used to provide train seats. It's private at the level of capital goods which is also the level at which it's paid for - only one railway can use a piece of rolling stock (rivalrous) and that railway can prevent other railways from using it (excludible). You might as well say that a house or a car is a public good, since they are merely capital goods that provide a stream of an underlying consumer good (space to live, road trips). What are the positive externalities of a train? If anything, it's externalities seem to be negative - it creates pollution and noise. (It might be less negative than driving but that's a different claim.)

jensen123 11y ago

> Re: the conversation about walk-ability of cities. The key concept here is density. We need to value density as it allows for more compact living. Another thing that perhaps needs to be valued more is sound insulation. I currently live in an apartment in a dense, walk-able city in Europe. However, I'm tempted to buy myself a house and a car, because I'm so sick and tired of all the noise that comes from living in an apartment in a dense area (neighbors, construction nearby, drunk people late at night etc.). Without good sound insulation, I don't think density works, although maybe it's just me who are more sensitive to this than other people.

drabiega 11y ago
It's interesting that you say that. In an earlier conversation on density and walk-able neighborhoods, I seem to recall a number of people from Europe saying that noise wasn't as much of a problem as in dense parts of the US because of different construction traditions. (Europe is a diverse place, of course, so it might just be down to regional differences.)
- jensen123 11y ago
  That could be. It's especially renovations in the same building where I live that has been the problem here. I'm guessing this is a bigger problem (more renovations!) in a large building, than a small one.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    Regarding renovations: whenever someone takes a rotary hammer to concrete, it will be fairly noisy no matter how good the sound proofing is. That sound will travel in the entire structure even if the building is 400 feet wide.
- ams6110 11y ago
  Any apartment or house old enough to have plaster walls will be much more soundproof. That stuff is dense and heavy and it's usually at least an inch thick, more than sheetrock/drywall.

malcolmgreaves 11y ago

I agree it's a tax revenue problem. However, as a CA resident living in the bay area with a tech salary, I can attest that _taxation_ isn't the problem. An unfortunate reality is that our budgets are not being spent well. In particular, BART has some serious high-cost issues. For one, the automated trains have operators whose total compensation is an average of $130k yearly. [1] There are terrible, ineffective managers, directors, and executives that are guilty of mismanagement and greed [2]. soyiuz, you are absolutely right: BART needs more money. It also needs new people and a radical overhaul to update a system operating on 40 year old designs and assumptions. ---- [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/are-bart-workers-taking-us-for-a-ride.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/are-bar... [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23416601/barts-top-paid-worker-2012-never-worked-day http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23416601/barts-top-paid-worker...

soyiuz 11y ago
Agreed! The cure for mismanagement should be more transparency and more algorithmic government (along with testing)---a topic for another conversation.
Aloha 11y ago
high cost issues are endemic to the bay area, not just to BART
arjie 11y ago
About half that money is in their healthcare and other benefits plans. Worth keeping that in mind. They're not walking home with $130k.

chiph 11y ago

Around 20% of the motor fuels tax ends up in the general fund, and not the highway trust fund. Your legislators can increase highway/transit infrastructure spending by that amount, but won't pull funding from other programs that have grown dependent on it. You should talk to them about this. The article briefly touched on it, but as car owners transition to non-petroleum powered vehicles, the motor fuels revenue has nowhere to go but down. So the current taxation basis of gallons consumed will become unworkable. Taxing based on miles traveled has privacy implications (they will need to monitor your driving to assess the tax). A monthly road-tax based on vehicle size/weight/capacity might be the only way to keep highways funded. To keep transit systems like BART funded, they will have to support it by taxing the local population, whether they own a car or not (remove the dependence on the highway trust fund).

rrrrtttt 11y ago

The glorious state of California has the highest taxes in the nation and is the home of the tech industry. If wealth isn't trickling down, it's because it is being wasted.

zach 11y ago
Twelfth-highest, as it happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United...
jahewson 11y ago
Actually California has the 4th highest taxes in the nation behind New York, New Jersey, and Conneticut. It has the highest income tax, but that's because its other taxes are relatively low, in particular property taxes which were evicerated by Prop 13. California's current tax system is actually regressive, with the poorer section of society shouldering more of the tax burden than the richer segment. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Taxes-101/States-with-the-Highest-and-Lowest-Taxes/INF23232.html https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Taxes-101/Sta... Also the tech industry holds an awful lot of wealth outside the US, in tax havens such as Ireland. And while taxes in California are high by US standards, many European countries (with excellent public transport systems) tax at higher rate still, for example sales tax in the UK is 20%. The state of California is chronically underfunded because it does a poor job of taxing the people who actually have money. Not because the money isn't well spent (some 40% of it goes on education alone).
- SilasX 11y ago
  >The state of California is chronically underfunded because it does a poor job of taxing the people who actually have money. So does everyone else. The reason it's so hard to tax the wealth of the rich is not because they're masters of political manipulation but because they're -- as you note -- much better at (legally) restructuring their activities so that the wealth does not pass through a nexus that a given jurisdiction controls.
- disgruntledphd2 11y ago

PantaloonFlames 11y ago

> We need to value density as it allows for more compact living. rack em and stack em, eh? recent research finds that people living in low-density suburbs are happier than people living in cities. People living in rural areas are happiest of all. http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11673 http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11673 We can promote more "compact living" but the data shows it degrades human happiness.

ch4s3 11y ago
Serious question, why do rural areas have higher suicide rates per capita?
- xnfndnx 11y ago
  Arguments presented without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. The guy you're responding to cited his, please cite yours.
  - cmurf 11y ago
    http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/rural-suicide.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/rural-suicide.aspx http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-growing-risk-of-suicide-in-rural-america/387313/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-growin... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/rural-youth-suicides_n_6867420.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/rural-youth-suicide...
  - crymer11 11y ago
    http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2195006 http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=21950...
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    That wasn't an argument. It was an uncontroversial factual statement. Citing things is nice, but you can also just google 'suicide rural'.
  - 11y ago

barney54 11y ago

There is no reason that roads cannot pay for themselves. Gas tax revenue comes close to paying for roads when it is spent on roads.

thrownaway2424 11y ago
Define "comes close". In California the fuel tax covers less than half the maintenance cost and none of the capital costs of the roads.
- barney54 11y ago
  You aren't including federal gas taxes.

bmm6o 11y ago

> Re: the conversation about walk-ability of cities. The key concept here is density. It does require density, but not so much that you need buildings more than a few stories high. Much more important is zoning that allows shops and restaurants to be mixed in with housing, and not wasting those few square blocks within walking distance with parking lots and private yards.

InclinedPlane 11y ago

> The problems it highlights can be reduced to low tax revenues. Our infrastructure is crumbling because we do not collect enough taxes to subsidize it. This is a double whammy, because so many urban areas basically came close to the brink of death during the mid 20th century and have only revitalized in the last 30-ish years or so. That means there's a massive infrastructure and services "debt" in most cities, so they have the burden of playing catch up as well. > Things like roads and trains cannot (and should not) pay for themselves---they are a public good. The train might be empty at night, but the ability to take a train home prevents drunk driving, for example. One cannot put a monitory value on services like that, they speak to our collective quality of life. The SF transit situation is the direct consequence of a failing tax base. The wealth of the local tech industry is not "trickling down" to improve city infrastructure, in proportion to the industry's growth. I strongly agree with this and wish it was more of a priority (sadly, our political system is so broken everyone is focused on other sideshows and wedge issues). Public transit is really a strong societal good, and an equalizer. Good public transit is a big factor in enabling the poorest and least advantaged to find jobs wherever they exist while keeping their housing costs low and also enabling things like continuing education and so on. It's a major component in that whole "lifting yourself up by your bootstraps" thing that people think is so important.

cbd1984 11y ago

Also, public transit is by no means terrible. The premise is just fatally flawed.

cowardlydragon 11y ago

10) And THAT is because of the systemic starving of government by the ultra-rich. 20) That would probably require a sprawl tax. The wannabe rich in suburbs ... well goto 10

dcposch 11y ago

> Our infrastructure is crumbling because we do not collect enough taxes to subsidize it. That's just not true. We have crumbling infrastructure because we refuse to prioritize it due to political dysfunction. If youre a surgeon or a lawyer living in San Francisco, your marginal tax rate is 39.5% federal + 11% state. Over 50%. You also pay 8.75% VAT on a lot of common purchases and 1% property tax. This is not a low tax environment. Hong Kong has a 15% flat tax and yet they have vastly better infrastructure than we do. Singapore is a similar story. Even Istanbul, with per capita income and tax collection thats a small fraction of ours, has a great light rail system that puts Bart to shame. Istikal Street is incredible--imagine Market and Mission put together, and pedestrian only. It is a beautiful city. So how do these places do it? * They respect and prioritize infrastructure * Their governments are less gridlocked * They value density and walkability * They have fewer NIMBYs, with much less power to obstruct * They're less lawsuit-friendly. In the Bay every big infra project spends time and money fighting lawsuits. * They have leaner bureaucracies. BART has tons of six figure salaries on the payroll for random adminstrative positions.

beachstartup 11y ago
if you're a surgeon or lawyer (or any other kind of high end services professional) living in SF and making any kind of significant money, most of your earnings are probably not coming on a W2 in the form of a salary. you're probably a partner or a shareholder in a business and get a dividend or a distribution from the business as a K-1 or a 1099-DIV/INT, and your effective tax rate is going to be way, way lower than 50%, probably closer to 20% or below. because you own part of the businesses a huge amount of your expenses are either deductible or simply covered by the business, which then deducts it from its earnings (which are probably getting passed through to you directly). lunch and some dinners, ambiguous trips to major cities, car lease, laptops, phones, christmas gifts, etc. also, a lot of people just straight up buy shit for their house on the business dime like nice TVs, furniture, etc. field audit? move it to the office. sales (you call it VAT .. okay) tax is probably high, but it's optional, you don't have to actually buy anything. also, you can buy stuff in cheaper places, especially if you and own a second home in a lower tax area (which many people do).

rahimnathwani 11y ago

"Things like roads and trains ... are a public good." No, they're not. From Wikipedia (which matches what I learnt in economics class): "... a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others." Trains are definitely excludable (can't get on without a ticket) and rivalrous (the train can get full, meaning no space for additional passengers). Roads are obviously rivalrous (gridlock!) but you could argue the extent to which they are excludable. Sure, there are toll roads, but it would be hard for you to exclude me from using the road in front of my house. With technology, though, you could make me pay for usage according to some arbitrarily-designed tariff, though, which would force me to self-exclude if I weren't willing to pay the price.

kennywinker 11y ago
Those a mucky definitions. Roads are excludable in just the same way as trains... you don't have a car, you can't get on roads. That's economic exclusion, and a bigger excluder than transit fares in most urban settings (not to mention requiring a license, no DUIs, etc). A good transit system has very low fares, as they try to include everyone even the poorest people. A good transit system also has very rarely full trains, and more coming along in 5min if that one's full. If you're arguing that roads are a public good, then you absolutely must accept that transit is one... and any rational person would agree that they are a far greater good than roads and highways (at least, within the urban centers).
- rahimnathwani 11y ago
  "Those a mucky definitions." There was exactly one definition in my comment: that of a public good. The remainder was my reasoning for why roads and trains do not fit that definition of a public good. With which part(s) do you disagree? "If you're arguing that roads are a public good..." I'm not arguing that. That's why I started my comment with "No, they're not". I'm not sure how to respond to the rest of your comment, as your main point (that public transit is good) is orthogonal to mine.

ajmurmann 11y ago

Living in the suburbs is also highly subsidized since the suburbs have enormous infrastructure costs that are hidden. See http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html

seivan 11y ago

That's interesting, how do you explain Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan? Lower taxes but better public transport?