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The way I conceptually see it is that people with lower income pay less once a year, during tax time, and save a lot of money then. All other times it's just mu

The way I conceptually see it is that people with lower income pay less once a year, during tax time, and save a lot of money then. All other times it's just much simpler if prices/fees/whatnot are based on actual usage. Can you imagine owning a gas station or running a parking lot and having to deal with income verification from all your clients, and then dealing with the government to get reimbursed because Joe Schmo is low income and got a 25% discount? That would be a recipe for wasteful bureaucracy, black market activities like low income people using their gas cards to fill up others' cars, and generally just tons of inefficiencies.

bhickey 8y ago
The author isn't suggesting that gas taxes should vary with income. His point is that they're a flat tax and flat taxes are regressive.
- coredog64 8y ago
  I’ve made similar comments in other discussions, but there’s an element of redlining to this. Upper middle class people push for ever higher safety standards in new motor vehicles. This pushes the retail price higher for new cars, but also has the follow on effect of raising the price of newer used cars. As a result, vehicle consumers at the bottom of the economic ladder wind up with cars that are less safe, less efficient, and less reliable.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I drive a Kia Rio. It's one of the cheapest cars on the market and it's efficient and reliable. I don't know about safety. There are good cars available on the lower end of the market. I wish there were options with less power available to be even cheaper.
zdragnar 8y ago
I was approached twice on the same day at a cub foods once by people offering to buy my groceries with their food stamps in exchange for a lesser amount of cash. I still think the program is valuable, but damn it hurts to see it be abused (especially since one of the guys had his little kid with him). A discount card or whatever that works on the spot is practically guaranteed to be abused as an easy money maker for people, and the net effect ends up being counter to the purpose od the program and many others.
- benologist 8y ago
  If the majority of people are acting responsibly within the program does abuse warrant changing policies for everyone else, ie optimizing around the frauds, or should abuse be handled separately? When GOG.com optimized around the frauds they came up with a refund policy for their ethicals that's driven by preventing the frauds, now their real customers wanting refunds must work within a hostile framework designed to deny their refund because it assumes they're an adversary.
  - pnw_hazor 8y ago
    GOG is not funded by money taken from others under the threat of violence. Any corruption or waste in government weakens people overall faith in government.
    - benologist 8y ago
      Recipients of foodstamps aren't government employees and their fraud is individuals committing crimes, it's not government corruption. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-facts-about-food-stamp-fraud/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-f... The takeaway is that food stamp fraud ballooned during the four years through 2016 but that it still represents a tiny percentage of the program. A corrupt solution would be punishing the 99.1% of ethical recipients through more bureaucracy and restrictions for what the 0.9% did. That 0.9% should drive 100% of their fraud policies separately without impeding the overwhelmingly legitimate aid distribution. When compared with those total figures, the fraud identified in 2016 amounted to a mere 0.9% of the total. That was up from 0.5% in 2012.
  - zdragnar 8y ago
    This is all rather off-topic from what I was originally replying to (a purely hypothetical means of subsidizing a hypothetical tax), but what do you imagine could be done to change the food stamp policies? The scam was simple enough- he'd buy $100 of groceries for me, and I'd hand him $80 in cash. The one guy was practically taking food out of his kid's mouth (almost literally, in fact) to try to get that cash. Maybe it was a legit need, maybe it was for crack (fairly popular in that area of town). Either way, if he found someone to do it, he and his family would continue living off of the cheapest foods and charity, while he'd have some unreported money. Food stamps themselves are already a compromise; the reason we have them rather than handing out cold hard cash (like he wanted) was because we wanted some assurance that it would go towards a legitimate need, rather than fueling an addiction or luxury goods. Short of getting family members to turn fraudsters in or having grocery store employees act as police informants, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to improve the system at all, without even considering the burden of new policies on good actors.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

bhickey 8y ago

The author isn't suggesting that gas taxes should vary with income. His point is that they're a flat tax and flat taxes are regressive.

coredog64 8y ago
I’ve made similar comments in other discussions, but there’s an element of redlining to this. Upper middle class people push for ever higher safety standards in new motor vehicles. This pushes the retail price higher for new cars, but also has the follow on effect of raising the price of newer used cars. As a result, vehicle consumers at the bottom of the economic ladder wind up with cars that are less safe, less efficient, and less reliable.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I drive a Kia Rio. It's one of the cheapest cars on the market and it's efficient and reliable. I don't know about safety. There are good cars available on the lower end of the market. I wish there were options with less power available to be even cheaper.

zdragnar 8y ago

I was approached twice on the same day at a cub foods once by people offering to buy my groceries with their food stamps in exchange for a lesser amount of cash. I still think the program is valuable, but damn it hurts to see it be abused (especially since one of the guys had his little kid with him). A discount card or whatever that works on the spot is practically guaranteed to be abused as an easy money maker for people, and the net effect ends up being counter to the purpose od the program and many others.

benologist 8y ago
If the majority of people are acting responsibly within the program does abuse warrant changing policies for everyone else, ie optimizing around the frauds, or should abuse be handled separately? When GOG.com optimized around the frauds they came up with a refund policy for their ethicals that's driven by preventing the frauds, now their real customers wanting refunds must work within a hostile framework designed to deny their refund because it assumes they're an adversary.
- pnw_hazor 8y ago
  GOG is not funded by money taken from others under the threat of violence. Any corruption or waste in government weakens people overall faith in government.
  - benologist 8y ago
    Recipients of foodstamps aren't government employees and their fraud is individuals committing crimes, it's not government corruption. https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-facts-about-food-stamp-fraud/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2018/04/04/the-f... The takeaway is that food stamp fraud ballooned during the four years through 2016 but that it still represents a tiny percentage of the program. A corrupt solution would be punishing the 99.1% of ethical recipients through more bureaucracy and restrictions for what the 0.9% did. That 0.9% should drive 100% of their fraud policies separately without impeding the overwhelmingly legitimate aid distribution. When compared with those total figures, the fraud identified in 2016 amounted to a mere 0.9% of the total. That was up from 0.5% in 2012.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  This is all rather off-topic from what I was originally replying to (a purely hypothetical means of subsidizing a hypothetical tax), but what do you imagine could be done to change the food stamp policies? The scam was simple enough- he'd buy $100 of groceries for me, and I'd hand him $80 in cash. The one guy was practically taking food out of his kid's mouth (almost literally, in fact) to try to get that cash. Maybe it was a legit need, maybe it was for crack (fairly popular in that area of town). Either way, if he found someone to do it, he and his family would continue living off of the cheapest foods and charity, while he'd have some unreported money. Food stamps themselves are already a compromise; the reason we have them rather than handing out cold hard cash (like he wanted) was because we wanted some assurance that it would go towards a legitimate need, rather than fueling an addiction or luxury goods. Short of getting family members to turn fraudsters in or having grocery store employees act as police informants, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to improve the system at all, without even considering the burden of new policies on good actors.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]