10% Drink Tax or Property Tax Increase: Which Would You Choose? (compensation, standard of living)

[subdivisions]

I'm of a fairly libertarian bent myself, and even I see how PAT benefits all of us who live in Pittsburgh.

Tens of thousands of residents commute via PAT into the two neighborhoods of downtown and Oakland alone (possibly even over 100K combined during the school year) every day. Neither of those two locations have extensive amounts of parking. If PAT goes under, yes, it sucks for all the PAT commuters going to downtown and Oakland. Too bad for them, right?

But...it will suck for all the drivers too - even the ones who think that the financial health of PAT is no concern of theirs. Because once there is no PAT and all those tens of thousands of PAT commuters who have started driving to work in downtown and Oakland, where will everyone else park? Where will we fit all the extra cars on the parkways?

What will you do, Mr. PAT-should-succeed-or-fail-on-its-own-merits, when 10,000 new people are suddenly vying for the Soldiers & Sailors parking spot you used to park in every morning? What will you do when there's suddenly 10,000 more cars on the parkway sitting between you and your workplace at 7:35 am?

PAT's finances are not simply a matter of "too bad for all those suckers who have to ride the bus". They should be a matter of concern for everybody, because PAT's consequences are going to affect everybody sooner or later. It's not about providing hand-outs to the lazy bastards (although that might be true to some extent), it's about taking a pragmatic view of potential consequences for our city and our lifestyles.

[bbrian12]

i guess we are screwed either way

if the drink tax is repealed the bar owners will not drop the price on a beer cause there property tax just went up so that will be there excuse for the price staying the same.

and if the drink tax stays
the property tax will prob go up anyway cause there greedy politicians will find something else to waste our money on.

like port authority, or a few more new stadiums, or tunnels or a half built casino

[bbrian12]

i agree we need a public transportation

but 20 somthing dollars an hour, free benefits, and so on and to sit on your fat ass and drive a bus?

my old job i drove a truck just as big as a bus and delivered heavy auto parts all day for 8$ an hour and i had to pay a fortune for health insurance

[creepsinc]

Originally Posted by subdivisions

I'm of a fairly libertarian bent myself, and even I see how PAT benefits all of us who live in Pittsburgh.

Tens of thousands of residents commute via PAT into the two neighborhoods of downtown and Oakland alone (possibly even over 100K combined during the school year) every day. Neither of those two locations have extensive amounts of parking. If PAT goes under, yes, it sucks for all the PAT commuters going to downtown and Oakland. Too bad for them, right?

But...it will suck for all the drivers too - even the ones who think that the financial health of PAT is no concern of theirs. Because once there is no PAT and all those tens of thousands of PAT commuters who have started driving to work in downtown and Oakland, where will everyone else park? Where will we fit all the extra cars on the parkways?

What will you do, Mr. PAT-should-succeed-or-fail-on-its-own-merits, when 10,000 new people are suddenly vying for the Soldiers & Sailors parking spot you used to park in every morning? What will you do when there's suddenly 10,000 more cars on the parkway sitting between you and your workplace at 7:35 am?

PAT's finances are not simply a matter of "too bad for all those suckers who have to ride the bus". They should be a matter of concern for everybody, because PAT's consequences are going to affect everybody sooner or later. It's not about providing hand-outs to the lazy bastards (although that might be true to some extent), it's about taking a pragmatic view of potential consequences for our city and our lifestyles.

The people who say "screw it, I don't ride the bus" are the same people who say "screw it, I don't own a house".

I'm of a fairly libertarian bent too (small L, of course), but I have no problem with tax dollars going to essential services that benefit the entire region, and I think public transit certainly qualifies. For the price of a new hockey arena (and I love hockey) and PNC Park and Heinz Field, we could have a pretty impressive light rail system. Or maybe not, considering the boondoggle of extending it less than a mile to get lazy people over to PNC Park and Heinz Field, when they have a perfectly wonderful bridge (or 3) to stroll across.

[right-here-i-say]

Originally Posted by bbrian12

i agree we need a public transportation

but 20 somthing dollars an hour, free benefits, and so on and to sit on your fat ass and drive a bus?

my old job i drove a truck just as big as a bus and delivered heavy auto parts all day for 8$ an hour and i had to pay a fortune for health insurance

You don't get it. Those people are better than you. They earn every cent of their high pay, benefits, and a lifetime pension and benefits which would cost us millions of dollars if we bought it as an annuity.

They can strike, and you can pay. Sure, one day their pension will go under, and then all of Pennsylvania can pay for it with higher taxes (P.A.'s constitution states this)

Just remember, there are 2 classes of citizens here in P.A. Government Union, and the rest.

[right-here-i-say]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I don't see how you are disagreeing with what I wrote. You obviously think PAT efficiency can be improved through changing how PAT compensates employees, and I have no particular stand on that issue (to that extent I am not agreeing with you, but I am also not disagreeing--I just don't have a view on the subject).

Rather, my point was just that I don't think whatever you think can be done to improve PAT efficiency, including changing compensation, should be viewed as an alternative to increasing funding and revenues--rather, I think we could do both. And you don't seem to be arguing we shouldn't do both.

So I really don't see the disagreement--rather, you are talking about one thing, and I am talking about another, and we seem to agree they aren't mutually exclusive.

I think if PAT Transit were to get paid what other Transit workers got, there would more routes, and by now a line to Oakland and possibly even the East and the North. Instead of these, we have chosen huge pensions and benefits. Why would anyone in P.A. want to pay higher taxes when they are already the highest paid in the nation? Remember, there is a bus driver who just retired who worked over doubled his salary in overtime, was making $95K per year his last 3 years, and under the contract this meant he would get $47,500 per year for life. Think of all the people whose routes were changed or removed, and all of that waste, just to 1 person.

There should be no tax increases, until we see the union take a hit.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by pman

I don't think you're favoring anyone. Rich people frequently benefit from things more than others, I think too many people get caught up in worrying about that...especially so-called progressives. You might also say that people on the lower end of the scale benefit more from taxpayer funded programs. I don't agree with your assertion that to be neutral, it needs to be progressive. I think a flat tax that doesn't single out groups is the best way to go. All taxes have negatives. If I were to set up a national income tax, it would be flat, a standard deduction set to the poverty line, and no other deductions, not even for housing. It's simple, fair, and cost effective. Imagine a three line tax form...bet that would **** off tax accountants.

Just as an aside, but "progressive" in this context just means the marginal tax rate increases with income. It isn't connected to the political term.

Anyway, I'll just suggest a couple brief points, since this isn't a general tax policy thread.

First, it is true all taxes have negatives, but I don't think that relieves us of trying to minimize those burdens. In light of that thought, it may be worth mentioning the most basic rationale for the point I was making is the diminishing marginal utility of money--basically, the benefit of any additional dollar of wealth tends to decrease as wealth increases (e.g., it may be a big deal for a family to go from an income of $25,000/year to $75,000/year, but it will mean much less for a family to go from $500,000/year to $550,000/year). But the converse of this is that removing a given dollar then causes less harm as wealth increases (e.g., a 50% marginal tax rate on that additional $50,000 would lower the second family above from $550,000 back to $525,000, which is likely to cause less hardship than lowering the first family from $75,000 back to $50,000). So it makes economic sense to increase the marginal tax rate with income, because a tax structured like that actually causes less total hardship.

Second, most people who have seriously tried to study the issue have found that richer people tend to benefit a lot more, not a lot less, from government expenditures than poorer people. Some people find that a surprising thought, but I don't think it should be. Most government spending is not specifically for the benefit of poorer people, and richer people have a greater ability to extract benefit from the general economy than poorer people--that is what makes them richer people. So, in the end they tend to benefit more from anything that helps the general economy, and most government spending falls into that category (indeed, even poverty programs tend to indirectly benefit the general economy).

But as we have noted, a progressive tax is not currently an option in this case, so this is indeed a little off topic.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by right-here-i-say

There should be no tax increases, until we see the union take a hit.

This is the part I don't understand. I understand you want to see changes made in PAT compensation, but do you think underfunding PAT is likely to force it to make the compensation changes you want to see happen? I don't see that as being likely. Rather, I think they will just cut capacity instead.

In other words, I think you are holding a gun to the head of many of PAT's current and potential riders, and telling the union if they don't accept your compensation proposals, you will shoot. The problem is that by your own analysis, you haven't taken hostages they really care about.

[BrianTH]

By the way, I also consider myself somewhat libertarian-minded, but I think certain public programs have such proven benefits for the general economy and society, they are pretty hard to argue against in practice. Transportation is on that list--at least since the Romans built their roads I think public subsidies for transportation have been proven to be a good idea, and so for me the only real question is what projects make the most sense. And when you are talking reasonably dense areas, it starts making sense to fund not just highways but also buses and trains.

[creepsinc]

I'm reading a great book about Wal-Mart, which is one of the biggest beneficiaries of government welfare programs. I love how conservatives bow at their altar and conveniently ignore the fact that 90% of those blight factories are subsidized with tax breaks and free land. Wal-Mart contributes absolutely nothing to society. They pay people crap wages and thus add to the human welfare rolls and cost the government even more. It would be interesting to see what local governments could do with the money they throw at the pride of Bentonville, AR.


Edit- of course, I'm referring to public transit when I speculate about the money that could be saved by telling Wal-Mart to **** off. Still on topic.