4 ms·

I want, as a taxpayer, to be paying the bill for government functions. Taxes are much easier to apply progressively against the citizenry than fees, which are r

I want, as a taxpayer, to be paying the bill for government functions. Taxes are much easier to apply progressively against the citizenry than fees, which are regressive. Encouraging agencies to self fund is how you get asset seizures; ticket traps like Maricopa, CA; regulatory capture like the agency that oversaw oilrig safety before the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and many others. It leads to the worst form of monopolistic rent taking.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Not only that, it discourages the use of government services which the taxpayer has to pay the fixed costs of regardless. Suppose you have some litigious plaintiffs filing unmeritorious cases and then losing every case that goes to court but extracting settlements from defendants who do the math and realize it's cheaper to pay them off than to fight and win in court. If you dump a bunch of court fees and other costs on anyone who demands their day in court, more people settle (or the unmeritorous claims can extract higher settlements) and it makes the scam more profitable. Meanwhile the victims aren't a large enough voting block to get it changed on their own, and now the taxpayer isn't feeling the bite of the expense and the judges aren't feeling the wasted time in their courtrooms, even though the number and extent of people being victimized is larger. And it's the same thing for any of it. By the time the taxpayer is paying most of the cost of operating a subway line, better that usage not be discouraged through fares so that the line sees 90% utilization instead of 60%, because you're paying the fixed costs to run it either way. Which also makes it so you don't have to waste a lot of money on infrastructure to collect fares, which means that not only are you getting more for your money, the overall cost to the public ends up being lower if it's 100% taxes than if it's 80% taxes and 20% fares, because then half the fares aren't being wasted on fare collection. If the government is going to pay for something then it should pay for all of it or not at all.
azernik 6y ago
Note also that the rather extreme, even by American standards, racial disparities in Ferguson policing were driven by the city refusing to levy sufficient taxes, and funding itself instead on extractive fines and court fees (the latter not even requiring a proof of guilt, you'd be charged said fees just for being hauled in front of a judge).

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

Not only that, it discourages the use of government services which the taxpayer has to pay the fixed costs of regardless. Suppose you have some litigious plaintiffs filing unmeritorious cases and then losing every case that goes to court but extracting settlements from defendants who do the math and realize it's cheaper to pay them off than to fight and win in court. If you dump a bunch of court fees and other costs on anyone who demands their day in court, more people settle (or the unmeritorous claims can extract higher settlements) and it makes the scam more profitable. Meanwhile the victims aren't a large enough voting block to get it changed on their own, and now the taxpayer isn't feeling the bite of the expense and the judges aren't feeling the wasted time in their courtrooms, even though the number and extent of people being victimized is larger. And it's the same thing for any of it. By the time the taxpayer is paying most of the cost of operating a subway line, better that usage not be discouraged through fares so that the line sees 90% utilization instead of 60%, because you're paying the fixed costs to run it either way. Which also makes it so you don't have to waste a lot of money on infrastructure to collect fares, which means that not only are you getting more for your money, the overall cost to the public ends up being lower if it's 100% taxes than if it's 80% taxes and 20% fares, because then half the fares aren't being wasted on fare collection. If the government is going to pay for something then it should pay for all of it or not at all.

azernik 6y ago

Note also that the rather extreme, even by American standards, racial disparities in Ferguson policing were driven by the city refusing to levy sufficient taxes, and funding itself instead on extractive fines and court fees (the latter not even requiring a proof of guilt, you'd be charged said fees just for being hauled in front of a judge).