4 ms·

Everything I don’t like should be illegal. If we cannot make it illegal, it should be inordinately inconvenient. If we cannot make it inordinately inconvenien

Everything I don’t like should be illegal. If we cannot make it illegal, it should be inordinately inconvenient. If we cannot make it inordinately inconvenient, we should at least do something so that we can feel better about ourselves having done something. Whether or not it actually solves the problem - or if there’s even a problem in the first place - barely registers as a concern. I doubt DC has a lot of 6,000lb personal vehicles on the road, and I doubt a $500/year tax will dissuade anyone from buying one. Reminds me of how Boulder instituted a steep sugar tax despite being one of the healthiest cities in the country.

tomohawk 4y ago
In DC, a lot of the luxury vehicles are provided by corporations, almost all of whom are sited in/around DC to exert influence on the government. So the people making these sorts of rules will not be affected by them, and they are just making a moat around the luxuries that they want to enjoy so that they have status over the common folk. Kind of like politically connected and wealthy people wanting to get rid of gun ownership. They will still have armed body guards provided by the state or that they pay for.
imtringued 4y ago
Heavy vehicles cause significant road damage, scaling the tax based on vehicle weight is actually very reasonable. I personally would rather turn your comment around. "Paying for the road damage I caused is something I don't like, it should be illegal" That is how capitalism works. Just make doing the right thing illegal. People complain about the homeless problem but don't talk about how they made it illegal to not have homeless people. They spend insane amounts of resources, like $60k per year per tent, because that is the best option that is still legal.
hahaxdxd123 4y ago
Externalities on others should be taxed, yes.
- robocat 4y ago
  Your comment deeply upsets me. Perhaps you need to be taxed for your comments that upset others. We should also tax low-quality off-topic comments as well?
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    Trying to take trucks or guns from old Americans is kinda like trying to pry sheep from New Zealanders. They'll be fighting for their extensive form of animal husbandry down to the last shagging body.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  This tax isn’t assessing externalities; that’s something you’d build into the gas tax. This is a yearly punitive sin tax assessed because someone feels a moral imperative to coerce the behavior of others. > “You can’t ban sales of these things,” says Mary Cheh, a D.C. councilmember who developed the new fee structure, “but you can make them pay their own way.” My 3 ton pickup truck is my sole vehicle, and has been driven a total of 19,000 miles over the past eight years. That’s an average of 2,375 road miles per year, over eight years. In absolute terms, I’m doing a lot less damage to the road and producing a lot less pollution than the individual commuting to work every single day, even if they’re driving an EV (charged by our existing non-renewable infrastructure!). My truck will also last me for at least another decade, further avoiding the massive carbon footprint inherent in building a new vehicle. It’s reminiscent of our sugar tax. I now pay an extra 60 cents for a diet, sugar-free soda when we go out for hamburgers, because restaurants are required to collect the tax if you could get a full-sugar soda at their soda fountain. In a city that was already the healthiest in the country, and has absolutely no obesity problem. Assessing the cost of externalities is fine. Useless laws that do nothing — other than soothing the anxiety and moral panic of their authors — externalize the cost of doing so onto the rest of us.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    You don't seem to understand how road damage scales with vehicle weight. My car weighs somewhere between the smart and the prius so let's take the average which is 0.20 (wouldn't surprise me if this is 2x more road damage than I actually do). The Chevy Tahoe weighs less than your truck and is at 3.57 or 18 times worse. I have driven 100k miles over eight years which is five times more than you, what a coincidence 0.2 times 5 is 1.0 which means you did 3.57 times as much road damage as me. If we accurately weighed our vehicles I am sure that number could go up to 7 and higher. What really annoys me about your comment is all the virtue signalling you do. Ignorance is not a get out jail card. https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/w...

tomohawk 4y ago

In DC, a lot of the luxury vehicles are provided by corporations, almost all of whom are sited in/around DC to exert influence on the government. So the people making these sorts of rules will not be affected by them, and they are just making a moat around the luxuries that they want to enjoy so that they have status over the common folk. Kind of like politically connected and wealthy people wanting to get rid of gun ownership. They will still have armed body guards provided by the state or that they pay for.

imtringued 4y ago

Heavy vehicles cause significant road damage, scaling the tax based on vehicle weight is actually very reasonable. I personally would rather turn your comment around. "Paying for the road damage I caused is something I don't like, it should be illegal" That is how capitalism works. Just make doing the right thing illegal. People complain about the homeless problem but don't talk about how they made it illegal to not have homeless people. They spend insane amounts of resources, like $60k per year per tent, because that is the best option that is still legal.

hahaxdxd123 4y ago

Externalities on others should be taxed, yes.

robocat 4y ago
Your comment deeply upsets me. Perhaps you need to be taxed for your comments that upset others. We should also tax low-quality off-topic comments as well?
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  Trying to take trucks or guns from old Americans is kinda like trying to pry sheep from New Zealanders. They'll be fighting for their extensive form of animal husbandry down to the last shagging body.
teakettle42 4y ago
This tax isn’t assessing externalities; that’s something you’d build into the gas tax. This is a yearly punitive sin tax assessed because someone feels a moral imperative to coerce the behavior of others. > “You can’t ban sales of these things,” says Mary Cheh, a D.C. councilmember who developed the new fee structure, “but you can make them pay their own way.” My 3 ton pickup truck is my sole vehicle, and has been driven a total of 19,000 miles over the past eight years. That’s an average of 2,375 road miles per year, over eight years. In absolute terms, I’m doing a lot less damage to the road and producing a lot less pollution than the individual commuting to work every single day, even if they’re driving an EV (charged by our existing non-renewable infrastructure!). My truck will also last me for at least another decade, further avoiding the massive carbon footprint inherent in building a new vehicle. It’s reminiscent of our sugar tax. I now pay an extra 60 cents for a diet, sugar-free soda when we go out for hamburgers, because restaurants are required to collect the tax if you could get a full-sugar soda at their soda fountain. In a city that was already the healthiest in the country, and has absolutely no obesity problem. Assessing the cost of externalities is fine. Useless laws that do nothing — other than soothing the anxiety and moral panic of their authors — externalize the cost of doing so onto the rest of us.
- imtringued 4y ago
  You don't seem to understand how road damage scales with vehicle weight. My car weighs somewhere between the smart and the prius so let's take the average which is 0.20 (wouldn't surprise me if this is 2x more road damage than I actually do). The Chevy Tahoe weighs less than your truck and is at 3.57 or 18 times worse. I have driven 100k miles over eight years which is five times more than you, what a coincidence 0.2 times 5 is 1.0 which means you did 3.57 times as much road damage as me. If we accurately weighed our vehicles I am sure that number could go up to 7 and higher. What really annoys me about your comment is all the virtue signalling you do. Ignorance is not a get out jail card. https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/vehicle-weight-and-damage-chart.jpg https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/w...