Bloomberg loses on tax-hike plan, vows to find other ways to screw people over
Posted on July 17th, 2007 at 12:08 pm by Phillip McCracken
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been forced to admit defeat in his attempt to impose an $8 per car, per day tax for daring to drive into the city on work days ($21 per truck).
Wanting more money to roll into transportation improvements, Bloomberg proposed the tax in the hopes of cutting congestion in Manhattan.
Seems kind of odd to us that he would propose a measure to raise money that is designed to cut the activity being taxed in the first place. Much like raising taxes on cigarettes to fund health care, where the desired effect is ostensibly to cut the behavior, but real desire is to simply rake in more money governments can spend. After all, if you really wanted to cut smoking you would advocate for a $10 per pack increase on cigarettes, not a few cents.
Fear not, citizens of New York, Bloomberg will undoubtedly be back with some other scheme to take more of your money.
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“Seems kind of odd to us that he would propose a measure to raise money that is designed to cut the activity being taxed in the first place.”
I don’t find this odd at all - in theory, since the revenue for the city per (car x day) now is ostensibly nothing (accuracy would need income for citations and parking fees that go to the city, and knowledge of where the bridge tolls go - in any case, a low number), it would presumably take a very large decrease in drivers to end up seeing no increase in revenue, and any drop in drivers up to that point also accomplishes the stated goal of cutting congestion.
The story behind the story here is that the main opposition in the New York State Assembly (which had to approve Bloomberg’s plan)came not from Republicans, but from Democrats (according to both the linked article and the local radio station). Democrats are also apparently the ones making the biggest fuss about Bloomberg’s plan to phase out NYC’s yellow taxis and replace them with hybrids.
This highlights the reason many Republicans are dissatisfied with the party- it has consistently ignored that fact that it is suppose to be the party of small government. I’m not surprised when I hear Republicans in my state talk about leaving and joining the New York State Conservative Party- and I won’t be surprised if some sort of third party movement begins on the national level within the next decade.
Would this Conservative Party that is in favor of “small government” cut the main black hole - defense (offense) and intelligence (oxymoron) spending?
Well, it’s a state Conservative Party, so it doesn’t really deal with national defense/offense and intelligence, but it does generally support small government (much more than the New York State Republican Party typically does).