Dear BMG’ers,
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read my op-ed that appears in today’s Boston Globe. It highlights our infrastructure and transportation crisis and offers an approach that will not only fund long-overdue investments, but allso help over 500,000 retail jobs and achieve Main Street fairness.
Thanks for your continuing advocacy!
Best wishes,
Steve
Please share widely!
should be held responsible for paying for the MBTA, I think car riders should be held responsible for paying for all the roads, highways, tunnels and bridges.
An increase to the gas tax is the best way to do it.
Internet companies that aren’t hitting Mass residents up with the sales tax should be forced into compliance, and that extra revenue should be used to bring the sales tax back down as much as possible. The sales tax is, after all, a bad tax, failing in two key aspects of what goes into making good tax policy: 1) it’s not progressive, hitting people who can least afford it far worse than others and 2) it’s unpredictable, making it all that more difficult for the state to balance a budget.
Most obvious: raise the gas tax. Earmark some of that revenue for the most-local transit agency, even if it ends up being here is no local transit agency within 20 miles. Sure, put some money to the roads, too. While we’re at it, (a) make it eligible for the sales tax, (b) tie the gas tax to inflation, and (c) include an escalator so that as gas tax revenues drift downward, the tax itself increases to make up the gap.
Next most obvious: Raise tolls to get into Boston. Raise tolls to get anywhere where the MBTA commuter rail competes. 95, 128, hell, Storrow Drive. Like the gas tax, you build in the rate increases automatically.
Less obvious: tax parking spaces. $0.25 per space, per hour. Meters, private lots, etc.Annual parking permit [like Boston]? $100/yr. Monthly: $10/month. Let parkers in the Boston metro area fund the most effective method of freeing up parking spaces — mass transit.
Using the sales tax to fund the MBTA was a boneheaded move. “Solving” the problem by expanding the MBTA’s exposure to sales-tax fluctuations only exacerbates their inability to do long term budgets. Neither the gas tax nor tolls need evaporate over time, and parking cars isn’t going out of style anytime soon. Each of these is more solid than expanding the sales tax in the name of MBTA and road solvency.
Internet sales decrease, rather than increase, the burden on our transportation infrastructure. Of all the targets for an increased tax, people who buy on the internet are among the least appropriate.
Far better is (as noted above) increasing the gas tax and tolls.
Best (in my opinion) is a mileage tax. Even low-consumption hybrids cause wear and tear on our highways and add to congestion.
rather than nested as a reply to stomv.
I agree with his comment, and intended mine to go alongside.
How do you count mileage without invading my privacy to see where I drive? MA isn’t entitled to my mileage out of state, or on private roads.
Taxing gas makes the most sense. We want to encourage people to get higher MPG, and taxing gas does that. Large vehicles are a greater threat to pedestrians, and they have worse mileage. Gas consumption is very directly tied to air pollution from autos, and therefore taxing gas directly most fairly captures the externalities of the pollution. It’s consumption of gasoline which induces us to go to war.
Sure, as people get better mileage, they’ll consume less gas and pay less gas tax. If they use half the gas, double the tax — same total expenditure on gas tax, less on gas itself,f and now you’ve got the same money for infrastructure and less money sent to the Middle East.
Taxing gas is far more efficient than taxing mileage, doesn’t require an invasion of privacy or substantial forms, correctly dings those who are putting pedestrians in the most danger and the most pollution in the air.
As for liveandletlive’s claim that it would bog down the economy, balderdash. Gas is $3-$4 a gallon, a $1.00 range. Adding ten cents to the tax would hardly be noticeable. We’re talking about $2 a fill up.
Vehicle weight correlates to more wear and tear on pavement. Large vehicles require more pavement to park on, too. Big cars and pickups are costing us all more, even if we don’t own one.
from parking tickets to infrastructure improvements.
Both roads and mass transit should be funded out of the general budget. I would be opposed to a gas tax, though I can understand tolling the Zakim Bridge and O’Neill Tunnel. If we want to encourage MBTA ridership we need more service, not less.
Internet sales that are tax free hurt retail stores that try to sell the same products but have to charge sales tax. Enforcing tax collection on internet sales will not only bring in revenue, but level the playing field. We need our brick and mortar businesses to be there for us. I think it’s a good idea to collect taxes on internet sales and it’s long overdue.
Please don’t raise the gas tax. Filling up to get to work is still a huge expense. Increasing taxes there will have a negative impact on the economy.
Filling up to get to work costs me less than $50 a week, driving my average-mileage car 15K miles a year, which is also average. The added cost of a tax increase would have much less effect on the cost of a tank of gas than the typical variation in gas prices does. If a driver’s situation is noticeably affected by such a small increase in the cost of a gallon of gas, that driver is either driving an very inefficient vehicle, or is traveling a lot farther than the average. Choosing to do those things costs everyone.
is a lot of money to some people.
Does Kirth realize many people need to travel long distances to work and it is not a matter of choice, but necessity. Lord forbid they drive a large sedan instead of a clown car, just to be on the safe side in the event a deer runs in front of them or involved in an accident. The one child policy is not law in the USA, so having a clown car is not practical nor safe, my friend.
I am not against the Internet tax as a fairness issue. Before Mr Grossman whacks me for buying a pair of shoes over the net, why doesn’t he ask Harvard University for a contribution since they pay zero property taxes and zero in capital gains taxes on their $32 billion endowment fund. My property taxes include include a MBTA fee since they provide service to the city, why should Harvard get away with murder by paying nothing when their clients and employees use the darn thing? Is this fair, my friends at BMG?
Why is the T in such bad shape? Well, here is the difference between public vs. private sector. Guilford RR replaced an entire rail of track from Haverhill, MA to Portland Maine at a cost of $70 million. The T replaced the Greenbush line, approx 10 miles of track. Guess how much people? $70 million or $170 million or $300 Million or $500 million? Yep, never kill the job, total cost $500 million. Am I to shed a tear that the T is $8 billion in the hole?
Raising the gas tax hurts the poor and middle class and is a dumb idea, with all do respect. The costs is passed to everything we buy, food, clothes, etc. stop rattling the tin cup in my face looking for more money, and go after the protected class, the Harvards and BU’s of the world, and tax the obscene pensions at the state income tax. It doesn’t say “Sucker” on my forehead, Mr. Grossman.