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"@ Falls Church:Not only is it more equitable to re-distribute windfall gains through a special tax, it increases support for future projects.
What support? The support of people not paying? How are they supporting? The whole point of the special tax is to not support."

support as in vote for, support politically - not as in support financially.

"Infrastructure benefits everyone. That local road in California? Yeah, that's where that glass of wine that you're about to drink tonight came over. That's why infrastructure should be paid for by everyone."

Unless I drink australian wine exclusively. While a case could be made for simply financing all trans infrastructure 100% from federal funds, and a case could be made for full privatization, in fact the distribution of benefits is complex - some are to users (and could in theory at least be privatized, at least to some extent) and some are externalities, but usually NOT evenly distributed.

"If not, you might as well privatize infrastructure. Which doesn't work."

Without disputing the latter (though I note the US freight rail system has worked surprisingly well with relatively little public support, at least for the last few generations) I think there is clearly a range of intermediate solutions.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Jun 22, 2012 11:02 am • link • report

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