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What makes you think the best alternative to cut out the poor entirely?

• saas_co_de 9y ago
  My point is that charging both fees and taxes means that the poor are excluded, because they can't afford the fees, but they still have to pay part of the taxes.
  • turc1656 9y ago
    All public goods are taxed even if they don't have associated fees. So, if we were to move everything to a fee-for-usage system, I don't think you'd like the result since the wealthy pay an extraordinarily outsized portion of funding for public goods and services (which they use far less than the average person). The poor would still be excluded because the new fee would be at least the existing tax+fee, plus some additional increased amount to account for the wealthier people who were paying an outsized portion through income tax previously. Now that rich person gets to pay the same $x as the poor person. The poor person is still priced out in your scenario.
    • saas_co_de 9y ago
      > The poor person is still priced out in your scenario. correct, but they haven't been taxed for something they can't afford to use anyway, so they are better off.