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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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That's "what they are spending", which is not the same as "subsidy", which is what "other people are spending for their benefit".

I feel like you're focusing on the definition of subsidy when the focus for O'Toole and myself is the costs we're all paying, of which subsidies are one form and private costs are another. Of course, much of the funding for cars is also money that other people spend for driver's benefit; from the above linked piece up to 40% comes from general funds, mostly from local property and sales taxes.

Of course, much of the funding for cars is also money that other people spend for driver's benefit; from the above linked piece up to 40% comes from general funds, mostly from local property and sales taxes.

It turns out that with cross-subsidies and such it's fairly difficult to figure out the subsidy number -- if money is taken from road taxes and spent on transit, but then money is taken from sales tax and spent on roads, how do you count it? But I am sure that "40%" figure doesn't include private costs in its basis.

Yeah it can be confusing because gas taxes are used for both systems as well. Also correct that the 40% doesn’t include private costs but rather taxes; the remaining 60% is from user fees. I just added that in to point out that both systems are financed partially by people other than their users; the fact that car owners bear the private burden of their vehicle doesn’t mean that car infrastructure doesn’t receive other people’s money as well.

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