4 ms·
Your subway fare goes into the city budget. The cost of the subway system comes out of the city budget. Your subway fare only "directly finances" the subway sys
by ses1984 8y ago
Your subway fare goes into the city budget. The cost of the subway system comes out of the city budget. Your subway fare only "directly finances" the subway system as long as it's convenient to think of it that way. If there was ever a huge surplus of subway money, it would go to other projects. If there was ever a huge deficit elsewhere, money would come out of the subway system.
- BurningFrog 8y agoPerhaps, depending on the city. I believe the NYC subway is state run. So to be clear, you do consider subway and bus tickets to be taxes? How about US postage stamps? Public utility bills?
- ses1984 8y agoAll that really matters is the effect on the bottom line, not the what you call each line item. Some debits map very logically to services like public utility bills, you pay for what you use, so it's convenieng to think of it in terms of usage fees instead of taxes. Some things don't map that clearly, like real estate taxes or sales tax, so it's convenient to think of them ad taxes.