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Funding roads (taxes, user fees etc)
#76
(01-30-2018, 09:42 AM)SammyOES Wrote:
(01-29-2018, 09:19 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: What is ridiculous is people claiming that road costs are recovered from users of the roads when they plainly are not. The fact that there is a large overlap between taxpayers and road users does not affect this.

Lol.  Of course it affects that claim.  Just because it is inconvenient for your whole argument doesn't mean you get to ignore it.  And the vast majority of people are going to care only if the money is coming out of their pocket - not whether its coming out of their left or right pocket.

(01-29-2018, 09:19 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: The same is true of transit: I’ll bet substantially all users of GRT pay taxes to local municipalities, either directly, or via their landlords. The whole point is that there is a difference between transit (some cost recovery) and roads (none, or almost no cost recovery).

Yes, there's a difference between the two.  Although the percentage of transit users is much lower than the percentage of drivers in the general tax base, even counting indirect taxation through rent to a landlord.  It is very likely that transit is more subsidized by "Non transit users" than driving is subsidized by "Non drivers".  I don't have a problem with that.  Nor do I have a problem with you pointing out that the funding of transit and roads are different.  The problem is when you jump to the illogical claim that driving is completely subsidized.

(01-29-2018, 09:19 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I just thought of question that may shed some light on this: who pays for our local police, the WRPS? Taxpayers, or the users of the service?

Taxpayers - who are also the users of the service.  Of course, even more than roads, a big chunk of the benefit is the presence of the service and not an actual explicit incidence of usage.

I’m not sure what to say to this. To me, it is obvious that user-pay means that those who use the service pay for it. In particular, if I can arrange things so that I don’t use the service, I don’t have to pay for it. For example, in the policing example, if I don’t use the police, I don’t pay for the police. If I don’t use the roads (maybe I only walk everywhere), I don’t pay for the roads. If I don’t use the library, I don’t pay for the library. If I don’t use the food from Zehr’s, I don’t pay Zehr’s. And so on.

It doesn’t have to be a precise proportional payment. For example, suppose public transit only had monthly passes, and was fully funded by those passes. Or suppose there was an Internet movie viewing service that charged by the month. In either case, they would be user-funded. If I don’t use the service, I can opt out of paying for it.

But the bottom line is that words are supposed to mean things. And user-pay means that I can opt out of paying, by not using the service. Do you have a different idea of what it might mean?

It’s impossible to have a rational argument about which services should be user-funded, and to what extent, if people refuse to recognize what things are self-funded and which are paid for by the general taxation base.

Funny thing is, I’m not even sure which services should be user-funded. I think reasonable cases can be made for a wide variety of choices in many different cases.

But I’m not seeing anybody even attempting to make the case that roads are self-funded, presumably because it is an impossible case to make. You might start, however, with the gas tax contribution, which you could probably show, under colorable assumptions, is responsible for a several-percent degree of user-pay.
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#77
So it comes down to ‘if I don’t use it why should I pay for it’! With that thinking then I shouldn’t have to pay for transit as I don’t use it. I shouldn’t have to pay for public education since I don’t have children in school. I should contribute less to healthcare because I don’t smoke, I exercise regularly and am generally in good health. I could go on and on. I don’t mind paying for all of these services and others equally even if I personally may not be benefitting from them if it benefits society as a whole.
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#78
(01-30-2018, 11:17 AM)creative Wrote: So it comes down to ‘if I don’t use it why should I pay for it’! With that thinking then I shouldn’t have to pay for transit as I don’t use it. I shouldn’t have to pay for public education since I don’t have children in school. I should contribute less to healthcare because I don’t smoke, I exercise regularly and am generally in good health. I could go on and on. I don’t mind paying for all of these services and others equally even if I personally may not be benefitting from them if it benefits society as a whole.

No, please read what I wrote more carefully. It comes down to, if I still have to pay for it when I don’t use it then it is not user-funded.

Which sometimes is entirely appropriate, and other times leads to problems, but by itself it’s just an observation about how it is funded.

There is no “should” in anything I’ve written in this thread, other than possibly people “should” try harder to understand what others are saying and not assume they are saying something they aren’t.
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#79
OK, here’s my original statement:

Quote:No disagreement here. Just earlier today I saw some comment (on a different board) about how if we charged full cost recovery on public transit we’d find out that users of it don’t value it as much as the cost of running it. True enough, but even more true for roads, where the usual cost recovery ratio is 0% or a close approximation thereof.

Let’s review the facts. Public transit: cost recovery some percentage, in most places well under 100%, but usually a significant fraction of operating costs. Riders fund GRT to I want to say around 40% or so. I can opt out of contributing to the 40% and only pay my share of the 60% by not using GRT. Local roads: cost recovery approximately 0; no significant fraction of operating costs is recovered from usage fees. Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so. I cannot opt out of contributing to our local roads by not using them.

My observation was about people who are in effect complaining about the public funding for public transit, implicitly saying the 40% (probably higher in Manhattan where the discussion was) should be 100%, without even noticing that the equivalent number for the road network is 0%.

Now, OK, maybe you want to use some weird definition of user-pay which includes funding from the general tax base. Fine. Then both the roads and public transit are fully funded by their users. Also, it now makes no difference to the debate what is recovered at the farebox/toll plaza/whatever collection method, because every way of funding the service counts as user-pay (with the possible exception of contributions from the provincial and federal governments).
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#80
(01-30-2018, 11:17 AM)creative Wrote: So it comes down to ‘if I don’t use it why should I pay for it’! With that thinking then I shouldn’t have to pay for transit as I don’t use it. I shouldn’t have to pay for public education since I don’t have children in school. I should contribute less to healthcare because I don’t smoke, I exercise regularly and am generally in good health. I could go on and on. I don’t mind paying for all of these services and others equally even if I personally may not be benefitting from them if it benefits society as a whole.

You do contribute less to healthcare because you don’t smoke, of course. And it’s probably inevitable that you’ll one day contribute less if you eat less of certain foods (in some jurisdictions, this already happens).
 
We’ve socialized health care costs because we’ve recognized that it’s prohibitively expensive for individuals to insure against some things. We have public education because an educated and literate population is important for everyone.
 
But, anyway, that’s not what it comes down to. What it comes down to is that the costs of these services have been socialized, just like many of the costs of driving have been socialized. And that means that it’s impossible for people to know what the true costs are, and make sure the benefits realized justify them.
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#81
(01-30-2018, 10:12 AM)MidTowner Wrote: You’re right that most people are drivers- but should someone who drives occasionally all of a sudden be responsible for a share of the maintenance of the roads calculated based on the value of the property he owns? Is it really appropriate that someone who drives 20,000 kilometres a year on local roads might pay the same towards their upkeep as someone who drives a tenth of that distance?

I totally agree that we can do a lot better. I just find the whole "Drivers pay nothing" rant that people go on here to be really irritating and counter productive. So much so that I can't just let it go very often.

Although, as I've also pointed out many times, there are also a LOT of benefits to people aside from the time that they're physically on the road (like faster response times for ambulances/fire/police).

(01-30-2018, 10:12 AM)MidTowner Wrote: I would guess that the biggest cross-subsidy is not from “non drivers” to drivers, since the former are a small percentage and do glean benefits from the road network even if they never drive a car on it. It’s more likely that it would be from light users to heavy users. That’s also a big problem for everyone, since the way things are set up now, there’s no signal as to the actual cost of the road system, and people are therefore encouraged to use it wastefully.

I suspect it's actually from "wealthy" people to "poor" people. Which is actually fundamentally fine for me. I think there are good arguments for increasing usage feeds - but its not actually set up to be used that wastefully since there are still a LOT of other costs related to mile driven. Even if those costs don't fund the road infrastructure they still serve as a deterrent to wasteful usage.
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#82
(01-30-2018, 11:30 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so. I cannot opt out of contributing to our local roads by not using them.

The first sentence is a lie. Drivers fund a large percentage of our local roads.

The second sentence is true.

(01-30-2018, 11:30 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Now, OK, maybe you want to use some weird definition of user-pay which includes funding from the general tax base.

You can't have it both ways. Being very semantically precise here on what you mean by user-pay but then using that to make very semantically imprecise statements like "drivers fund our local roads to around 0%".


(01-30-2018, 11:30 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Fine. Then both the roads and public transit are fully funded by their users. Also, it now makes no difference to the debate what is recovered at the farebox/toll plaza/whatever collection method, because every way of funding the service counts as user-pay (with the possible exception of contributions from the provincial and federal governments).

Nobody is arguing this. If the Government provides a service to 95% of its taxpayers - its reasonable to say 5% of the users are subsidizing (to some extend) the other 95%.

There's a big difference in the amount of users of public transit and road networks. It's why it seems like a reasonable position to consider public transit more subsidized than road network.
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#83
[quote pid='48072' dateline='1517331153']

I suspect it's actually from "wealthy" people to "poor" people.  Which is actually fundamentally fine for me.  I think there are good arguments for increasing usage feeds - but its not actually set up to be used that wastefully since there are still a LOT of other costs related to mile driven.  Even if those costs don't fund the road infrastructure they still serve as a deterrent to wasteful usage.
[/quote]

I'm curious why you would think wealthy people would be subsidizing the driving of poor people? I can't think of much progressive about the way we fund roads. Property taxes are slightly progressive, but not to a great extent- especially as equity in one's home is a smaller proportion of wealthy people's wealth than poorer people's, and other types of property taxes are passed on to renters and consumers.

I also don't see that there are "a lot" of other costs related to miles driven. Gasoline, for sure; and depreciation, but not on a 1:1 relationship: depreciation is a function of more than just how much the car was driven. Maintenance works similarly. Insurance cost isn't related to miles driven, either, more than to a small degree.

Cost per kilometre driven definitely falls as more distance is driven. I think most of the incentives are more use, not less.
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#84
(01-30-2018, 01:02 PM)SammyOES Wrote:
(01-30-2018, 11:30 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so. I cannot opt out of contributing to our local roads by not using them.

The first sentence is a lie.  Drivers fund a large percentage of our local roads.  

The second sentence is true.

User pay means there is a direct link between a payment and a usage. Ontarians all fund OHIP, but by and large our health care is not user pay, because it is, largely, free. Paying for gas regardless of how fuel-efficient your vehicle is, what types of roads you use, how much wear you cause on them, let alone talking about general taxes going towards roads, is a false narrative. People who drive tend to buy fuel (hello, Tesla), which has a fuel tax, but in no way is there any connection to their usage of the gas (boats, lawnmowers, actual car usage), the roads used, or where the money goes. Until you either put tolls in place or GPS systems in place, people who drive may pay money they *think* is a usage fee, but has no real connection.

Cyclists pay zero user fees, as do pedestrians. Transit users explicitly pay a toll: pay $X for 90 minutes/1 day/1 month of usage. That's a direct user fee, and the only transportation method in the region that has one.
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#85
(01-30-2018, 01:06 PM)MidTowner Wrote: I'm curious why you would think wealthy people would be subsidizing the driving of poor people? I can't think of much progressive about the way we fund roads. Property taxes are slightly progressive, but not to a great extent- especially as equity in one's home is a smaller proportion of wealthy people's wealth than poorer people's, and other types of property taxes are passed on to renters and consumers.

I think its safe to assume (although don't know for sure) that property tax is highly correlated with wealth. Roads are also funded out of general tax revenue - which is mostly based on progressive taxes.

(01-30-2018, 01:06 PM)MidTowner Wrote: I also don't see that there are "a lot" of other costs related to miles driven. Gasoline, for sure; and depreciation, but not on a 1:1 relationship: depreciation is a function of more than just how much the car was driven. Maintenance works similarly. Insurance cost isn't related to miles driven, either, more than to a small degree.

Maintenance is highly correlated with miles driven. Insurance is as well (both directly in that you pay more based on your standard usage and miles driven, and indirectly in that number of claims are correlated with miles driven).

There's a reason that the CRA/IRS use numbers around $0.50/km. They're not being nice - its actually a pretty fair number in aggregate.

(01-30-2018, 01:06 PM)MidTowner Wrote: Cost per kilometre driven definitely falls as more distance is driven. I think most of the incentives are more use, not less.

Sure, unit cost goes down (like most things), but its not negative. It's not an incentive to use more.
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#86
(01-30-2018, 02:10 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: User pay means there is a direct link between a payment and a usage. Ontarians all fund OHIP, but by and large our health care is not user pay, because it is, largely, free. Paying for gas regardless of how fuel-efficient your vehicle is, what types of roads you use, how much wear you cause on them, let alone talking about general taxes going towards roads, is a false narrative. People who drive tend to buy fuel (hello, Tesla), which has a fuel tax, but in no way is there any connection to their usage of the gas (boats, lawnmowers, actual car usage), the roads used, or where the money goes. Until you either put tolls in place or GPS systems in place, people who drive may pay money they *think* is a usage fee, but has no real connection.

Cyclists pay zero user fees, as do pedestrians. Transit users explicitly pay a toll: pay $X for 90 minutes/1 day/1 month of usage. That's a direct user fee, and the only transportation method in the region that has one.

None of this addresses my point. Nor does it contradict that its is just wrong to say "Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so.".

Like I said to ijmorlan. If you're being precise in how you're using user-pay then the statement above doesn't logically follow. Because, of course, there are lots of ways for people to pay for stuff besides a strict user-pay method.

This point is independent of the fact that its also a lie from a purely technical point of view because of things like the gas tax.
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#87
(01-30-2018, 02:26 PM)SammyOES Wrote:
(01-30-2018, 01:06 PM)MidTowner Wrote: I'm curious why you would think wealthy people would be subsidizing the driving of poor people? I can't think of much progressive about the way we fund roads. Property taxes are slightly progressive, but not to a great extent- especially as equity in one's home is a smaller proportion of wealthy people's wealth than poorer people's, and other types of property taxes are passed on to renters and consumers.

I think its safe to assume (although don't know for sure) that property tax is highly correlated with wealth.  Roads are also funded out of general tax revenue - which is mostly based on progressive taxes.  

I'm not sure if property tax is highly correlated with wealth. Something tells me its not, for the reasons I said above. Intuitively, I would say it's regressive in respect to wealth. But I could be wrong.

It's definitely regressive in respect to income.
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#88
(01-30-2018, 01:02 PM)SammyOES Wrote:
(01-30-2018, 11:30 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so. I cannot opt out of contributing to our local roads by not using them.

The first sentence is a lie.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: the member is using unparliamentary language.

No further response required.
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#89
You're smart and you keep repeating it. *Shrug*.

Totally unrelated, I've always thought it telling that Parliament considers "lie" to be one of the worst offenses. Something something doth protest too much.
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#90
Lying implies an intentional act of misrepresentation. You're accusing ijmorlan of something personally, not that he misunderstands or that he doesn't know or that you see it differently but that he is intentionally trying to mislead and modify the truth.
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