Slashdot Mirror

Better yet, eliminate taxes wherever feasible. For example, replace gas taxes with congestion tolls (and stop widening freeways until they start paying for themselves 100%, up from 65%, out of said tolls and other user fees), reduce the social security tax by replacing social security retirement benefits for everyone with a safety net only for those who need it, and make fire departments bill the property's insurance company for fire response.

in nearly all states, collected gas tax doesn't actually get spent on roads

"[E]ven if [fuel tax] funds were fully devoted to highways, total user fee revenue accounted for only 65 percent of all funds set aside for highways in 2007."

Therefore, if we want the roads to start paying for themselves, we'll need to raise the gas tax, increase other taxes or fees, and/or allow some roads to return to nature so we no longer have to maintain them.

Because air pollution is proportional to the amount of fuel burned, the gas tax is a good way to pay for air pollution, which costs us up to $1,600 per person annually in medical costs, lost days of work, and so on. It's also the least bad way to pay for global warming. Ideally, the gas tax should also vary according to the quality of the vehicle's emissions system, because older cars pollute more per gallon of gasoline than newer cars.

But the gas tax isn't a good way to pay for road wear, which is proportional to the 4th power of the axle weight. For that we'd need a mileage fee that varies according to vehicle type or weight.

And the gas tax also isn't an effective way to manage traffic congestion, which varies by the hour and the location. For that, we would need some kind of congestion pricing such as variable express tolls or a mileage fee coupled with information about when and where you drove (but there are privacy concerns with that option).

So if the goal is for the roads to pay for themselves, then the most efficient and equitable way to achieve this goal in a capitalist society where people pay each according to the benefit they receive and the burden they place on the system, is with not just a gas tax but also some kind of mileage fee and congestion pricing. Then we could lower transportation sales taxes such as Prop K in San Francisco or Measure R in Los Angeles.

The humble Ford Model T cost about 1 cent a mile to operate --- in an era when a streetcar ticket cost 5 cents.

Operating costs include not just gasoline but also maintenance, insurance, registration, and parking.

Other costs of owning a car include depreciation, loan servicing, and the opportunity cost of capital.

And then there are hidden costs such as air pollution, carbon emissions, the urban heat island effect, sales and property taxes to build and maintain the roads, and the loss of freedom (and loss of capital utility) to own a home or business without the government forcing you to overbuild your parking lot.

Far fewer people would drive if not for all of these government incentives and coercion to drive.

airports like LAX and SFO are quite financially sustainable.

It's easy for them to be financially sustainable because they were built with public money. Only one airport in the USA was ever financed privately.

the highway system is only profitable because of the fuel tax

They aren't profitable. Even if gas tax funds "were fully devoted to highways, total user fee revenue accounted for only 65 percent of all funds set aside for highways in 2007."

2007, around $74 billion was spent on corrections. The total number of inmates in 2007 in federal, state, and local lockups was 2,419,241. That comes to around $30,600 per inmate. In 2005, it cost an average of $23,876 dollars per state prisoner. State prison spending varied widely, from $45,000 a year in Rhode Island to $13,000 in Louisiana. $4,020 is the basic cost of raising each child per year as estimated by the Department of Health and Human Services for 2013, whether there is one child or many children. The total basic cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 is by their estimates $389,670, based on the 30 year average inflation rate of 3% increasing the $4,020 annual cost every year. According to Globalissues.org, "Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day." This statistic includes children. Using $2.50 a day, the cost is roughly US$900 for raising a child for a year, and US$16,500 for raising a child from birth to age 17 As per the cost of public education spending Colorado, for instance ranks ninth nationally in "quality" of education but spent an average of $9,155 per student in 2009, putting it among the 10 states spending the least per pupil. Wyoming though ranked 29th in quality spending the most averaging $18,068 per student. Alaska, ranked 41st for its education quality, spent an average of $16,174 per student. Overall, the U.S. spent an average of $11,665 per student. Prison stats Sources: http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p08.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=0 http://www.pewstates.org/uploadedFiles/PCS_Assets/2008/one%20in%20100.pdf Education stats sources: http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/analysis-how-much-states-spend-on-their-kids-really-does-matter-20121016

I'm the guy who finds your posts to demonstrate stupidity and enjoys pointing out your bullshit. And you came through in classic form. See you took one of the few actual statistics, in what was just a narrative (i.e. not a study or scientific paper but merely the opinions of a man who writes for a living), that said:

[O]nly 1.3% of those born into the poorest 10% managing to “struggle upward” into the top 10%, while nearly one third of those born into the top 10% are able to hold on to their class position.

And apparently read it as "only 1.3% of the top 10% got there due to hard work." It's not a difficult statement to understand and yet you completely and totally failed to grasp the idea presented. Just like you don't understand the ramifications that the best predictor of a child's future economic status is the parent's economic status. Which in addition to not leading to the result you think it does, isn't even that overwhelming a predictor (see fig. 7 on page 11 for data about sons or fig. 11 on page 15 for data about families) for the middle three quintiles (30% or less) and 41% for the ends.

And then you proceed to redefine your terms. Perhaps in your world view hard work is strictly physical labor, in which case your narrow perspective guarantees that you will never succeed and you will forever be a bitter whiner who blames his self selected failure on someone else. Here's a hint, which I suspect is going to fall on a deaf ears: physical labor isn't hard. It's the easiest thing out there, everyone is capable of doing it. Hard is doing something that takes years of dedicated effort to learn, hard is risking your future in order to found a business, hard is working 16 hours a day most every day of the week year after year, hard is knowing that you have to make trade offs today in order to have success tomorrow.

I'm going to guess that your next desperate attempt to wiggle out from under the feces flowing from your mouth will be to redefine "nearly no one" as being any amount less than 100%, but just in case you aren't too terrified of facing the naked the truth about how full of shit you are, here's a a profile of the 112th US Congress which happens to describe their prior occupations. Of note:

81 educators
17 doctors
2 veterinarians
2 psychologists
an optometrist
an ophthalmologist
6 nurses
3 sheriffs
2 deputy sheriffs
2 FBI agents
a border patrol agent
a firefighter
a physicist
a chemist
6 engineers
a microbiologist
9 accountants
4 pilots
an astronaut
2 pro football players
17 farmers
11 ranchers
9 social workers
9 national guard members
10 judges
26 prosecutors

There's more, but I figure 226 (out of 541) congressional members having held non-political jobs far exceeds any normal definition of "nearly none".

That isn't to say I dismiss your point outright, but I think I need to see some actual data before I accept your point.

You are quite right to doubt him.

Relative upwards mobility (in the US) is quite limited from everything I've read. Generally you end up in the same income quintile as your parents. Absolute income may be higher (hopefully, if you want to keep up with inflation), but relative income stays the same.

There are tons of articles online on the subject. Here's a cute little video that explains relative vs absolute income change. They claim the upper and lower quintiles to be "sticky" (i.e. less likely to see movement). They seem to have some interesting research on the subject of economic mobility.

The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and the middle income shuffle around. In Canada we're finding the "middle class" quintiles (middle 3 groups) are spread quite wide now. A family income of $40K-$125K is considered "middle income". A family making $125K is a whole different standard of living and level of financial security from one making $40K. If a tax policy benefits people that make more than 70K but less than 125K can we actually call it a tax break for the middle class? The US middle class looks a lot more compact (by some quick googling). Of course that's because the wealth is a lot more concentrated at the top in the US. In the US you have to make >380K to be a 1%er. In Canada a mere 280K will get you into the 1% club.

That isn't to say I dismiss your point outright, but I think I need to see some actual data before I accept your point.

You are quite right to doubt him.

Relative upwards mobility (in the US) is quite limited from everything I've read. Generally you end up in the same income quintile as your parents. Absolute income may be higher (hopefully, if you want to keep up with inflation), but relative income stays the same.

There are tons of articles online on the subject. Here's a cute little video that explains relative vs absolute income change. They claim the upper and lower quintiles to be "sticky" (i.e. less likely to see movement). They seem to have some interesting research on the subject of economic mobility.

The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and the middle income shuffle around. In Canada we're finding the "middle class" quintiles (middle 3 groups) are spread quite wide now. A family income of $40K-$125K is considered "middle income". A family making $125K is a whole different standard of living and level of financial security from one making $40K. If a tax policy benefits people that make more than 70K but less than 125K can we actually call it a tax break for the middle class? The US middle class looks a lot more compact (by some quick googling). Of course that's because the wealth is a lot more concentrated at the top in the US. In the US you have to make >380K to be a 1%er. In Canada a mere 280K will get you into the 1% club.

Indeed, USA is nowadays characterized by the lowest social mobility among western countries. The only other country that comes close is the UK.