Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
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Taxes and fares are both revenue sources and ultimately they trade off with one another. Every dollar you collect in fares is one less dollar households have for paying tax.
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The more you tax, the less money people have to pay health care or bus fees and the more you have people pay health care or bus fees, the less you can tax them.
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using taxes rather than fees to fund public schools does not “deprive the [schools] of needed revenue.”
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people also seem to understand this specifically in the context of buses. The largest bus system in the country, which by some estimates is larger than every urban bus system in the country combined, is almost entirely fare-free. It’s the school bus system.
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The same sort of pattern can be found with police services, fire services, and library services, among others. You could charge fees for those things, but opting for tax-financing rather than fee-financing does not deprive them of revenue.
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Sometimes user fees are important to manage excess demand (e.g., with electricity fees) while other times that is not so important (e.g., with fees for using local playgrounds).
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Sometimes distributive fairness requires the imposition of user fees (e.g., with fees for expensive food) and other times it actually requires the non-imposition of user fees (e.g., with medical devices for the disabled).