Schwartz: Why McDonnell’s Tolls are Better than Taxes
By Guest Post | Sunday, September 25th, 2011 | Policyby Andrew Schwartz
The Richmond Times-Dispatch printed an editorial bemoaning Gov. McDonnell’s plan to impose tolls upon drivers choosing to use I-95 as a via to their destination. Their solution instead is the widely-held Democratic position: a gas tax.
But, they say, “State Republicans’ irrational resistance to raising the gasoline tax has led them to embrace increasingly desperate measures,” for increasing revenue. Desperate measures like increasing the fine for moving violations. Desperate measures like making the most-travelled road in Virginia a turnpike, instead of a freeway. Apparently, new taxes on an economic staple is not a desperate measure, according to the Times-Dispatch.
The difference between the two plans is a matter of choice. Once a driver hits the road, no one forces him to travel along I-95. There are plenty of other routes available to traverse the state if he wishes. Even in an area like the Hampton Roads, there are choices—though limited—to travel in and out of the collection of pseudo-islands that make up the discontiguities of its hydrography. And with an availability of choice in the transportation marketplace (in this case, transportation networks), there are more benefits than just redistributed travelers. Business, along an interstate, is necessarily confined to the exit interchanges; however, along secondary routes—which might be more frequently travelled in the advent of a tolled interstate—the business options available to the traveler are both more diverse and less interruptive.
This is not to say that secondary routes are altogether better than limited access highways: interstates have the potential for a faster rate of travel, for those who prefer expedience and monotony to experience and scenery. But if the toll is imposed, the choice is still available for the luxury of faster roads, or for the frugality of slower ones. The editors’ only argument against tolls is a reminiscence of “bottlenecking” that occurred at toll booths before they were eliminated in 1991, and that they are “blunt instruments” that do not distinguish between smaller and larger vehicles. Such an argument, with modern technology, is completely outdated. True, traffic would pause, but not nearly at the length it used to; and different fees for different vehicles are ubiquitous on modern turnpikes. If we cast aside these arguments as they are presented—and we should—we are only left with the editors’ preference for a gas tax, which everyone in the state would pay—not just those who choose to travel the interstate.
A gas tax eliminates any incentive to choose a road other than the interstate. Once a driver hits the road, he is already paying extra money for the service of a transportation network; why not travel the more efficient route? Transportation costs go up across the board—for tourists and truckers—gradually decreasing the incentive to import into a silent tariff. Nearly every portion of our consumer economy is based on the cost of fuel. Food and construction material prices will rise in proportion to the cost of refilling a tank. Traffic redistribution will not occur, except in the instance that fewer people will travel at all to avoid spending money on both gasoline and groceries. The cost of living will increase while profit decreases.
At a time when our national and state economic future is uncertain—to say the very best—imposing an additional mandatory fee just for entering a public road would seem to be counterproductive. Tolls, on the other hand, would still allow the individual driver the choice to drive quickly or to drive cheaply. The Times-Dispatch editors appear to be against leaving as much money in the pockets of the consumer as possible, allowing them to spend it as they choose. Instead, they favor a redistributive measure that demands everyone in the state pay for the chosen congestion of a few.
*****
Andrew Schwartz is a United State Marine, and has a B.A. in History from Old Dominion University, where, despite his conservative arguments in liberal academia, he graduated Summa Cum Laude. His focus as a historian is on Colonial and Revolutionary American political and intellectual history. His focus on politics is rational conservatism. He has written on politics and history for various blogs for about five years.
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20 Responses to "Schwartz: Why McDonnell’s Tolls are Better than Taxes"
Andrew has come full circle to the point I raised in an earlier post: creating tolls on an existing, toll-free road, will lead to a renaissance in shunpiking.
Evaluating how a toll and gas tax will move us to alternative routes brings up a good point. Will this social engineering force us to take alternative transportation methods such as trains? Rather than reengineer roads, there’s a need to reengineer the serfs.
The ones you need to worry about are the truckers. US Rt. 1 up to I-85 could get pretty hairy.
The political difference is fewer voters will pay tolls than would pay a gas tax.
Yeah right, the trucker can always just take the alternate route. I am sure all the citizens living along that alternate route will be more then happy dealing with the tremendous amount of heavy truck traffic that suddenly shows up on their route. Emporia already has a truck restriction on US-301 through their town and do you want to bet that the restriction will be extended all the way down to the state line?
Travelers on the tollway will be paying twice. They will be paying the fuel tax at the pump and then paying again at the tollbooth. Meanwhile citizens in other areas only have to pay the fuel tax.
Open up your road atlas and take a look at Lynchburg. The citizens of itty bitty Lynchburg got all those fancy freeways paid for by fuel taxes collected from all over the state. When are the tollbooths going to go up in Lynchburg.
I have not seen any figures quoted, but I am confident that if an analysis is done on just who is subsidizing who, it is not the rural citizens who are subsidizing the urban areas when it comes to transportation it is the other way around. Each and every one of the vehicles stuck in the urban traffic jams are paying fuel taxes. If the amount of fuel tax revenue collected remained in the area where it was collected, I’d be willing to bet most rural citizens would be traveling on dirt roads instead of pavement.
If increased revenue is needed, then raising the fuel tax is the fairest, most efficient way of getting it. If the revenue is unnecessary, then tolls should not be necessary either. It is unfair that some citizens should be expected to pay both the toll and the tax while other citizens get by with only paying the fuel tax.
This overly long, winding, and tortuous piece is a classic example of why the republican party is dying. It has to summon up absurdity in order to continue to ignore the impact that is there for all to see. That is, the failure to increase the gas tax has created a deplorable situation in our Commonwealth that will be passed on to our children who will have to pay an outrageous increase in taxes just to use the roads, bridges, and tunnels that we built but failed to maintain. Nothing Mr. Schwartz has said changes that conclusion on iota. In Hampton Roads, it will create isolation and parochialism, and will subdivide our region back into two separate regions to the detriment of both.
I have an ezpass on my windshield and the windshields of several company vehicles depsite the fact that we are not regular users of toll booths. It is so convenient that in some states you do not slow down, just stay in the left lanes and haul ass past the transponder antenna. This is 2011 and the time has long been here to improve our interstate and to let the people who use interstate highways pay for it. There is no free lunch, someone or some entity pays for the road.
Again, framing the debate: “Government has already spent all of the money it has and needs more. Which mechanism shall we choose for making people pay more to the government?”
Never discussed as an option is “or, shall government be forced to live within its means like the citizens it allegedly serves?”
It doesn’t take a “conspiracy” to frame a debate this way. All it takes is a dominant social meme: big-government democrats, big government republicans, and their associated aligned media interests.
“These are your choices, citizen. Pay more this way or that.”
Do I need to again mention that 46% of Americans are currently receiving some kind of direct government support benefit? How much more money do I have that you want to take? When will your patronage system have enough?
If the money was going toward roads, it would be different but our complacent media and our fascist Government is working toward a whole different goal.
Someday, our nation may go back to a Constitutional cities, counties and states rather than Global Regional Partnerships, through our social reengineering. Because reengineering into our Global-loving Regions has left our area in complete shambles. We’re looking to pay for a train-project that by-passes Hampton Roads. Someone’s gotta pay for that train utopia from Washington to Charlotte.
http://www.sehsr.org/history.html
Just a couple of questions:
1. How much will it cost to change this to a toll road?
2. How much will it cost to operate the new toll road?
3. How much additional funds would be required to raise the gas tax and collect the revenue?
3. Doesn’t the cost of building and operating a toll road cost more than just raising the gas tax? In other words, wouldn’t the toll be a larger tax than a gas tax?
4. Don’t we want most vehicles on major arteries instead of smaller roads that often go through communities?
Andrew,
The fact of the matter is that we need more revenues to pay for the transportation system we currently have in Virgina. Because the Republicans are afraid of the word “tax” you’re trying to support a toll. It’s a manipulation and the worse possible way to raise revenues.
Be honest, why don’t you just bullet points pros vs. cons of tolls and gas taxes?
@ Jamie,
What do you mean by this: “46% of Americans are currently receiving some kind of direct government support benefit?”
I can’t post links. Google “American Thinker A Nation of Government Dependents” and you’ll find an article that contains this:
“Politicians have created a permanent underclass in America accustomed to receiving their “livelihoods” from one or more government programs. But the problem of inflated expectations is far larger and more complex than entitlements and public welfare.”
“The numbers are staggering. According to a Census Bureau report for the first quarter of 2009, of a little more than 300 million Americans, nearly 139 million — or 46.2% of us — were receiving benefits from one or more federal programs.”
Most of the dissent to my article focuses on the fact that an increase in the gas tax is more expedient than building roads. This is true. Raising the tax costs nothing more (on paper) than the assembling of delegates and senators, and the ink on paper.
But simply because a proposed solution may be quick does not mean it is wise.
Taxes, even the gasoline tax, are fluid, subject to the fickle whims of our democratic representation, who alternately tire of too much stability and too much chaos.
In the way our system of government has developed, taxes have become a centralized treasury, containing the deposits of the grants of the people, to be spent in a manner most expedient to the latest representatives. Accountability is sometimes lost in this process, and the use of funds does not necessarily correspond to its intended purpose.
The toll booth may not be as expedient as a tax, but it guarantees (in some respect) that the property granted to the government for their protective services of their constituents’ property is used for the same purpose intended.
Tolls are also more stable and predictable. Taxes are an annual theme in democratic elections, and their manipulation seems to be just as often. While tolls could fluctuate, the possibility of their doing so is less than that of taxes. Because of the better predictability of tolls, government may more wisely allocate funds from one year to the next.
We must not advocate a solution simply because its results are seemingly more easily seen. Short-term solutions, that are subsequently accepted as normal, have a way of violating expectations in the worst way, fomenting a foolish people once again to seek another answer of expediency.
Given the choice of only tolls or gas tax, I prefer tolls mostly for this reason:
Tolls are more visible as a cost of government. You can choose to avoid it. Enterprising businessmen will build gas stations and Burger Kings along routes around the toll booth(s). After all, all business is now a reaction to or an anticipation of some government mandate or rules change.
Mr. Schwartz: money is fungible. I have no confidence that any sufficient stink would be raised should toll money become redirected to other purposes.
Tor,
Every penny of an increased fuel tax should end up in the pavement because it would only be an increase in the existing tax. Businesses are already doing all the paperwork under the existing system so it is not an additional burden on them either.
Under a tollway, you have an entire new set of employees you need to pay; not just the toll collectors but the accountants, managers etc.
Now, if Governor McDonnell is going to look at all his new tollways as being jobs creators and start bragging that they helped lower the unemployment rate a little bit, well he will have a point. But if he is going to try and point to it as being an example of wise financial management he can give us all a big laugh.
Republicans and Democrats raising taxes to increase the size of their government. Nothing to see here, move along. The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is what they spend money on.
Where are the tax payer advocates in all of this, where are the people who when faced with the choice between raising the gas tax and installing toll booths say no to both ? Where are the people who are pushing for more spending cuts to reduce the burden on a struggling Virginia populace ?
Temporary,
They’re sitting in traffic jams and they realize that it is going to cost money to solve the problem.
LD,
Well when we cut the size of government in Richmond, cut spending in Washington D.C., and cut military spending in Norfolk, there should be plenty of room on Virginia’s highways to get around //grin//.
Perry-philes, rejoice! Regarding job creation, the Center for Immigration Studies has analyzed Rick Perry’s jobs miracle:
“Of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived immigrant workers (legal and illegal).
“In terms of numbers, between the second quarter of 2007, right before the recession began, and the second quarter of 2011, total employment in Texas increased by 279,000. Of this, 225,000 jobs went to immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived in the United States in 2007 or later.
“Of newly arrived immigrants who took a job in Texas, 93 percent were not U.S. citizens. Thus government data show that more than three-fourths of net job growth in Texas were taken by newly arrived non-citizens (legal and illegal).
“The large share of job growth that went to immigrants is surprising because the native-born accounted for 69 percent of the growth in Texas’ working-age population (16 to 65). Thus, even though natives made up most of the growth in potential workers, most of the job growth went to immigrants.
“The share of working-age natives holding a job in Texas declined significantly, from 71 percent in 2007 to 67 percent in 2011. This decline is very similar to the decline for natives in the United States as a whole and is an indication that the situation for native-born workers in Texas is very similar to the overall situation in the country despite the state’s job growth.”
CIS dot org “Who Benefited from Job Growth In Texas? “
Well Andrew, the fact that Virginia has a gas tax of $0.175, last raised in 1986, provides a sharp counter point to your comment that taxes are fluid and fickle. The honest assessment is that republicans have attained political power by trashing anything involving taxes or government and are simply loath to admit that on occasion, we need a functioning government supported by taxes from the citizens. The right wingers on this forum seem to forget that the social contract allows businesses to utilize infrastructure, education, technology, and research supported by the government and its citizens, and to provide products and services in return to us at the lowest price consistent with support of the system. Taxes and government are not bad per se, yet republicans failure to govern responsibly has given government a bad rap. And now, they actually want that to happen so they can regain the Presidency.
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