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Public roads are paid for via gasoline taxes, eg a flat usage tax, and are thus nearly exactly as regressive as a toll. The only difference is that a poor pers
by usetaxes 6y ago
Public roads are paid for via gasoline taxes, eg a flat usage tax, and are thus nearly exactly as regressive as a toll.
The only difference is that a poor person could choose to drive an economy car, or an electric vehicle, in order to avoid paying their share of use tax. But so could a rich person.
The other difference is that the usage tax is a hidden cost and tolls are not.
- dmurray 6y agoOnly about 40% of spending on roads in the US comes from tolls and fuel taxes [0]. It's not correct to call them "nearly as regressive as a toll": in terms of regressiveness, they're halfway between funding them from tolls and funding them from income/property/sales taxes. [0] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/