4 ms·

This is all part of the long-standing "taxation is theft" meme that infected the USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are many reasons we can't have nic

This is all part of the long-standing "taxation is theft" meme that infected the USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are many reasons we can't have nice things. One such reason is our collective unwillingness to pay for them.

RestlessMind 9y ago
Excuse me, but USA pays a lot. But apparently due to some cost disease, we need to pay a lot more than other countries to achieve the same goal. There was a fascinating NYT article [1] about spiraling costs of NYC subway, but you can observe the same phenomenon in other places (defense spending, healthcare spending, California high speed rail etc). So yeah, as a taxpayer, I will be super weary of approving any bond measure for infrastructure projects unless there is an ironclad proposal to control the costs. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  Yeah, paying for BART in the bay area is like: property taxes go to BART. BART uses it to pay gate agents $150k+ and do no infrastructure improvements. Another measure goes on the ballot because BART desperately needs money to fix infra. Bond is approved. BART employees strike for more money, get it. Infra improvements never happen. I guess we gotta pay those gate agents the big bucks to stand there and watch people walk through the emergency exit gates instead of paying the fare. Seems like a six figure job to me!
  - pishpash 9y ago
    Or, the 50%+ of the eligible people who don't vote, can vote, and do something about it. At current voting rates, every race is competitive.
  - empthought 9y ago
    > BART uses it to pay gate agents $150k+ citation needed
    - turc1656 9y ago
      Here's the data - the claim is not supported http://blog.vctr.me/bart/ http://blog.vctr.me/bart/ The raw, underlying data: https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-all.csv https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-a... Throwing this into Excel I see only around 15 employees who are in lower level positions that are anywhere near this compensation level. That being said, they do exist, and it's usually due to significant OT. Also, infuriating things like this exist but they are the exception, not the rule: https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/01/bart-janitor-grossed-270k-in-pay-and-benefits-last-year/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/01/bart-janitor-grossed-...
      - empthought 9y ago
        I only see one "station agent" with compensation anywhere near that level and it is Antonette Bryant. The rest are in the 60k area.
        turc1656 9y ago
        I included total monetary compensation (base+OT=other) and looked at more positions. Station agent is directly in line with what OP said, but I was looking for others that were in lower positions yet making 6 figures. Either way, we agree that the claim is not supported in the general sense. Only a few outliers exist.
turc1656 9y ago
"This is all part of the long-standing "taxation is theft" meme that infected the USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s" No, it's not. This is all part of the scam politicians have been running on the public for decades. Namely taking taxpayer money earmarked for specific purposes (i.e. maintenance) and then not using it for those things. Then they turn around and say "we don't have enough money, we need to raise taxes to pay for these unforeseen costs", even though the costs were completely and entirely foreseeable. Also, let's not forget the egregious waste on construction that is rampant in publicly funded projects, with NYC being the worst offender of them all. Case in point - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- tabeth 9y ago
  I agree with you, however, how would you propose that we ensure compliance in respect to money being used for intended purposes?
  - cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
    Same way that private corporations ensure money is spent where it is intended to be spent. Fire (read: impeach/do not re-elect) those that do not their job by spending money not for its intended purpose. Discover this by regular, full, public audits. Prosecute those who commit embezzlement and larceny and send the to prison if convicted. Make them serve long prison stints with no hope of parole for having violated their position of public trust and bar them from holding public office or lobbying positions on penalty of more punitive prison time.
  - sli 9y ago
    Kinda hate to say it because of the current level of hype making it always sound buzzwordy, but a blockchain or something similar could be legitimately useful here. The issue is getting government entities to agree to strict accountability.
  - thanatropism 9y ago
    Privatization.
lr4444lr 9y ago
New Yorkers are pretty highly taxed, actually.
- notyourday 9y ago
  Well, they used not to notice it as they were writing off the local taxes against fed taxes. I cannot wait until 2018 tax bills hit home. They should be eye opening to Manhattan/Williamsburg/Park Slope set
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Well, they used not to notice it as they were writing off the local taxes against fed taxes. Deducting state taxes make state taxes look exactly like loss of income. If you would notice an equally heavy loss of income, you'll notice state taxes even with full deductibility. Now, if it was a federal tax credit at full value of state taxes paid, sure, you wouldn't notice the state taxes. But that was never the situation.
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Much the Schadenfreude as I will have when a well-off population that generally promotes higher tax rates gets what it asked for, I don't think they "don't notice it" when they sign off on their annual filings and see their refund check. After all, they're only getting back their marginal federal rate, not the entire amount. It's how little they get for their money compared to other countries after what they (net) pay, or how little people pay elsewhere in the country for not much comparably less, that I would hope sparks a productive response toward city, town, and state agencies.
dionidium 9y ago
New York City residents pay some of the highest taxes in the country.
- mtanski 9y ago
  We pay more into the state then we get back. And upstate/albany often times sabotages us (like the MTA subsidizing some politically ski slopes). Same at the federal level. That's more complex since the region gets bunch of money back due to "security".
hectorr1 9y ago
Regulatory capture is bad, and happens both ways. Rs get support from groups that don't want taxes. Ds get support from groups that want taxes to be spent on them. Turns the budget into a negative sum game. The future loses.
rayiner 9y ago
It's not. Compare the budgets and ridership of MTA versus Transit for London. Similar cities, similar riderships, and MTA has a substantially bigger budget. We're underfunded in the sense that "it costs us 5x as much to do the same thing, and we're only allocating 1.5x as much money to it as European countries." Kinda true but not really the root cause.
dang 9y ago
Would you please not take HN threads on generic political tangents? Discussion quality goes down as genericity goes up. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20generic https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

RestlessMind 9y ago

Excuse me, but USA pays a lot. But apparently due to some cost disease, we need to pay a lot more than other countries to achieve the same goal. There was a fascinating NYT article [1] about spiraling costs of NYC subway, but you can observe the same phenomenon in other places (defense spending, healthcare spending, California high speed rail etc). So yeah, as a taxpayer, I will be super weary of approving any bond measure for infrastructure projects unless there is an ironclad proposal to control the costs. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

ryguytilidie 9y ago
Yeah, paying for BART in the bay area is like: property taxes go to BART. BART uses it to pay gate agents $150k+ and do no infrastructure improvements. Another measure goes on the ballot because BART desperately needs money to fix infra. Bond is approved. BART employees strike for more money, get it. Infra improvements never happen. I guess we gotta pay those gate agents the big bucks to stand there and watch people walk through the emergency exit gates instead of paying the fare. Seems like a six figure job to me!
- pishpash 9y ago
  Or, the 50%+ of the eligible people who don't vote, can vote, and do something about it. At current voting rates, every race is competitive.
- empthought 9y ago
  > BART uses it to pay gate agents $150k+ citation needed
  - turc1656 9y ago
    Here's the data - the claim is not supported http://blog.vctr.me/bart/ http://blog.vctr.me/bart/ The raw, underlying data: https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-all.csv https://github.com/enjalot/bart/blob/master/data/bart-comp-a... Throwing this into Excel I see only around 15 employees who are in lower level positions that are anywhere near this compensation level. That being said, they do exist, and it's usually due to significant OT. Also, infuriating things like this exist but they are the exception, not the rule: https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/01/bart-janitor-grossed-270k-in-pay-and-benefits-last-year/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/01/bart-janitor-grossed-...
    - empthought 9y ago
      I only see one "station agent" with compensation anywhere near that level and it is Antonette Bryant. The rest are in the 60k area.
      - turc1656 9y ago
        I included total monetary compensation (base+OT=other) and looked at more positions. Station agent is directly in line with what OP said, but I was looking for others that were in lower positions yet making 6 figures. Either way, we agree that the claim is not supported in the general sense. Only a few outliers exist.

turc1656 9y ago

"This is all part of the long-standing "taxation is theft" meme that infected the USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s" No, it's not. This is all part of the scam politicians have been running on the public for decades. Namely taking taxpayer money earmarked for specific purposes (i.e. maintenance) and then not using it for those things. Then they turn around and say "we don't have enough money, we need to raise taxes to pay for these unforeseen costs", even though the costs were completely and entirely foreseeable. Also, let's not forget the egregious waste on construction that is rampant in publicly funded projects, with NYC being the worst offender of them all. Case in point - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

tabeth 9y ago
I agree with you, however, how would you propose that we ensure compliance in respect to money being used for intended purposes?
- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  Same way that private corporations ensure money is spent where it is intended to be spent. Fire (read: impeach/do not re-elect) those that do not their job by spending money not for its intended purpose. Discover this by regular, full, public audits. Prosecute those who commit embezzlement and larceny and send the to prison if convicted. Make them serve long prison stints with no hope of parole for having violated their position of public trust and bar them from holding public office or lobbying positions on penalty of more punitive prison time.
- sli 9y ago
  Kinda hate to say it because of the current level of hype making it always sound buzzwordy, but a blockchain or something similar could be legitimately useful here. The issue is getting government entities to agree to strict accountability.
- thanatropism 9y ago
  Privatization.

lr4444lr 9y ago

New Yorkers are pretty highly taxed, actually.

notyourday 9y ago
Well, they used not to notice it as they were writing off the local taxes against fed taxes. I cannot wait until 2018 tax bills hit home. They should be eye opening to Manhattan/Williamsburg/Park Slope set
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Well, they used not to notice it as they were writing off the local taxes against fed taxes. Deducting state taxes make state taxes look exactly like loss of income. If you would notice an equally heavy loss of income, you'll notice state taxes even with full deductibility. Now, if it was a federal tax credit at full value of state taxes paid, sure, you wouldn't notice the state taxes. But that was never the situation.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Much the Schadenfreude as I will have when a well-off population that generally promotes higher tax rates gets what it asked for, I don't think they "don't notice it" when they sign off on their annual filings and see their refund check. After all, they're only getting back their marginal federal rate, not the entire amount. It's how little they get for their money compared to other countries after what they (net) pay, or how little people pay elsewhere in the country for not much comparably less, that I would hope sparks a productive response toward city, town, and state agencies.

dionidium 9y ago

New York City residents pay some of the highest taxes in the country.

mtanski 9y ago
We pay more into the state then we get back. And upstate/albany often times sabotages us (like the MTA subsidizing some politically ski slopes). Same at the federal level. That's more complex since the region gets bunch of money back due to "security".

hectorr1 9y ago

Regulatory capture is bad, and happens both ways. Rs get support from groups that don't want taxes. Ds get support from groups that want taxes to be spent on them. Turns the budget into a negative sum game. The future loses.

rayiner 9y ago

It's not. Compare the budgets and ridership of MTA versus Transit for London. Similar cities, similar riderships, and MTA has a substantially bigger budget. We're underfunded in the sense that "it costs us 5x as much to do the same thing, and we're only allocating 1.5x as much money to it as European countries." Kinda true but not really the root cause.

dang 9y ago

Would you please not take HN threads on generic political tangents? Discussion quality goes down as genericity goes up. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20generic https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...