Driving: America's newest favorite sin tax

[huckie]

Apparently, the policies of San Francisco are reaching out into the suburbs of DC. According to the Washington Post, Arlington is changing building codes to reflect the notion of a "don't build parking and cars won't come" and "tax the hell out of parking" mentalities. Today, SFMTA is hearing argument for and considering variable parking meter

Comments

[danthmanes]

The argument that sin taxes (i.e., excise taxes) are regressive is a good one, but I think that problem could be mitigated by tax rebates for the low-income people who would be disproportionately hurt.

Otherwise, your issue with these taxes seems to be, "If they work too well, you lose a funding source." But if they work, that means something that negatively affects society bad has been greatly curtailed. And often, this results in a significant monetary savings, which is just as good as revenue. Cigarette taxes mean lower health care costs. A tax on soda and junk food would probably lead to even greater health care savings. Gas taxes would mean less congestion (which means fewer expensive construction projects) and, with a little extrapolation, fewer wars (which, it turns out, are kind of expensive).

I'm not sure if the particular sin taxes your speaking of are the best example, but my general opinion of sin taxes is: bring 'em on.

[huckie]

The kinds of cost savings that you are talking about are both long term and indirect. The funding shortages that you will see will be both immediate and large. It took only 3 months of serious recession before the toll collection agencies went into sheer panic over the loss of expected funds and started proposing toll increases. Furthermore, big savings like decreased road construction, don't actually come from the general funds. They come from fuel taxes. Less cars -> damage to roads -> but also less funds available to fix them

[danthmanes]

Well it sounds like the problem is the politics of proposing a sin tax that carries along with it the promise of some great revenue source. That probably shouldn't be the goal of a sin tax. To me, it should be: reduce a behavior that is harmful to society and use any money collected to educate people as to why it's a "sin" and enforce the collection of the sin tax as well as other laws with respect to the sin (e.g., no alcohol or cigarettes to minors). I think this has been at least somewhat true of the cigarette tax. I agree with you that the savings are probably long term and that a sudden imposition of a large tax before, say, public transit has time to be demanded and then built, it too much pain too quickly. But that isn't an argument against the concept of a sin tax, it just means they should be phased in over time. Further, my point about gas taxes reducing construction projects wasn't just about reduced wear and tear on roads, it was also about not needing to build new roads or adding lanes to existing roads to satisfy our