The Empire Page

The topic:  For decades Americans have been willing to support public services which are made available to all citizens.  For example, cities maintain parks that are open to all.  Incidentally, NYC Mayor Bloomberg wants increase the number of public parks.  Yet we also ask users to pay part of the freight for some services, such as public transportation.  Is it time for users to pay more of the share of public services that are only used by a few?  Case in point: as a means to improve traffic flow and reduce pollution municipalities throughout the world have introduced congestion pricing -- those who bring their cars and trucks into certain areas are assessed a fee for doing so.  A measure to approve congestion pricing in Manhattan has been filed for consideration by the NYS Legislature.  Do you support this bill?   Another situation: fees for hunters have been kept artificially low in relation to the services provided by DEC, which for example raises pheasants to release during hunting season.  Even though those fees have been increased recently, should the people who use such services pay more of the full cost?

 

Paul Bray: The question about whether users of certain public services should bear their cost needs to be seen in the overall context of our taxation policies and the civic and social reasons behind the provision of public services like parks.

The American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes said his happiest day each year was the day he paid his taxes. He was happy to be making his contribution to a nation that did so much for him. When I was a student I was impressed that the USA had a progressive income tax. A complex and productive society like ours needs revenue to provide the services like public safety, national security, environmental management, education, social and health care services and infrastructure for community water, transportation facilities and parks. I valued (and didn’t take for granted) the full range of public services and the fairness factor that those who could best afford to pay taxes paid the greatest amount. It made sense to me.

Needless to say, times have changed. Today taxation is anathema especially for the rich, and any and all governmental spending appears to be considered a waste of taxpayer dollars. The extreme of this thinking was when the Wall Street Journal advocated higher taxes for lower income tax payers, not because the revenue was needed but so they would better understand how the rich feel when their taxes are raised.

In other words, for political reasons this is a difficult time for rationale consideration of taxation policies much to our national detriment when it comes to addressing the myriad of problems we face like a growing national deficit, the dire financial condition of state and local government as public needs grow, the poor condition of environmental and transportation infrastructure (even our state and national parks have billions of dollars of deferred maintenance), the decline of educational resources across the board, the threats from climate change and failure to provide for energy security and so on and so forth.

If we made that consideration, simply stated, we need to increase our progressive income tax together with a carbon tax (and other socially generated fees like congestion pricing as necessary to accomplish social ends) enough to generate adequate funds to support the wide range of valuable public services, begin reversing the national deficit and mitigate the effects of a carbon tax on low and middle income families. We should avoid as much as possible regressive and/or high impact revenue sources like sales tax, property taxes and various levels of dependence on governmental fees from state to state.

We especially should not look for revenue-pay for services from high civic and social value services, for example, like parks and public recreation and public education at all levels. Sandra Day O’Connor declared “There’s no better route to civic understanding than visiting our national parks. They’re who we are where we’ve been.” The same applies to our state and municipal parks like Central Park in NYC and Washington Park in Albany. We have a national interest to get our citizenry into our parks for their enjoyment and their betterment.

The same kind of thinking applies to education. My wife is from Brooklyn and got an excellent college education without cost at Brooklyn College. It was beneficial for her, but also for our society. As economist Paul Krugman recently wrote: “If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be ‘education’.” Yet, our advantage in education is slipping away in part because of the growing and often astronomical cost of higher education.

Let us keep our system of taxation fair and equitable and maintain the tradition of having our civically and socially justifiable public services available to the public at large without a price tag.

 

Doug Boettner:  As much as we are loathe to use the word, there are aspects of our government that are, by necessity, socialistic. Producing clean water, treating our sewage, getting rid of our rubbish, providing common areas for recreation, providing a highway infrastructure, providing a safety net for people who lose their jobs, providing a supplemental nest egg (Social Security) when we retire, the education of our children, and the list goes on and on. Each of these activities provide a service to the population at large and that is the true meaning of socialism.

Dictionary.com defines cultural socialism as, “An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism. Some socialists tolerate capitalism, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise. All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.”

I believe that just because a particular activity only benefits a selective segment of the population, such as operating fish hatcheries to stock lakes and streams for fishermen or raising pheasants to release them to be hunted by a small percentage of the population, it should be included as a function of government and therefore funded with tax dollars. The same goes with public funding to preserve the performing and visual arts. Generally, the same people who are hunting and fishing do not usually enjoy attending fine art museums or the opera. I say this to draw a contrast that goes to the essence of this roundtable debate.

Now, if we’re talking about a special tax or fee for people commuting into a densely populated metropolitan area that is a different story in my opinion. The special tax or fee would be designed for two reasons: 1) to decrease the level of pollution, and, 2) to decrease the level of vehicle congestion. The universe of people the tax or fee would apply to have multiple options to commuting in the metropolitan area. They have options available to them to avoid the tax or fee. They can:1) ride a bus or train into the city, 2) carpool into the city with other commuters. Each of these options work to better the conditions for the entire population. It is not a tax or fee that is imposed unilaterally, it is only imposed on those who choose to participate in the targeted problem areas that are trying to be controlled for the public good. Conversely, I have written in my column that I do not support a fare increase for the MTA. I do not believe the users of the MTA should bare a greater share of the cost of operating the MTA.

 

Stuart Brody:  The most striking aspect of this question is that it needs be asked at all.  Not that a democratic people shouldn’t debate the role of their commitments to the nation’s collective well being, but that the debate in modern America has taken such a narrow and selfish turn. 

Our very founding and survival was built on enormous compromises to serve union and freedom, even if particular interests were ill-served in the short run.   We can point to the Golden Age of the Senate when Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, and others, stitched together complex regional accommodations to keep the nation together—and allowed it to grow—forestalling war for thirty years.

We have a history of sharing the privileges and bounty of our rich nation freely in order to expand prosperity.   DeToqueville marveled at what he termed our volunteerism and boosterism.  Still, today, you can hardly visit an American town or county that does not boast large community service calendars and festivals for public entertainment and community promotion.

We are also a massively generous people--by far the highest per capita contributors to charity in the world, notwithstanding our collective skepticism about forking over tax money each April.

I believe, that deep down, most people hold as one of the blessed privileges of freedom, the free partaking of the grandeur that our wealth has produced. 

The parks of our great cities and our great public monuments and museums offered the world weary urban poor a moment of tranquility in which to nurture their dreams, dreams which, by God’s grace, were realized by so many.

Walking in a national forest, as others have commented, imparts a power of belonging that is unmatched, and diminished, if you have to pay for it.

Yet we live now in a time of stinginess.  From Congress with its earmarks, to Wall Street with its bonuses, the rule of the day is “take the money and run” before anyone catches up with you.

Just weeks ago, Senator John Kyle from Arizona actually complained in a Senate Committee debate on health care that he was required to pay for a health care policy that included maternity benefits since he would never use them.

In our own state, the best plans to fund the MTA which fuels our most potent economic machine—the City of New York—fell victim to the narrowest of selfish interests in our legislature.

Like a family bitterly divided over a contested will, in America the bonds of common devotion have been loosened by fierce and mindless emotion, and often it’s our politicians leading this desperate movement.  Too many cloak narrow interests with passionate rhetoric while subjecting anyone who disagrees with them to intemperate and often vile denunciation. 

How can such men and women summon the grace and generosity to provide for the general welfare and inspire others to achieve what Jefferson called the most noble ambition of free men:  pursuing individual happiness while contributing to the collective well being?

Perhaps they can learn something of public courage from Supervisor Mary Ellen Keith of tiny Franklin, New York who was voted out of office twenty years ago for spending the last remaining federal revenue sharing funds to purchase land for a park, instead of putting it in to the General Fund, because she wanted “something lasting.”  

Now, in her eighties, and freshly returned to office, she spends every summer morning making 100 sandwiches for the sons and daughters of her electors, grateful for her foresight.

 

Larry Hirsch: The question I believe that should be asked behind every expenditure of public funds is what is the public purpose of that expenditure. This should also be asked when the public charges fees for services.

We can look at parks the same way. True public parks like Central Park, that are used by thousands of people daily, are essential amenities and should always be free. However, like national parks, certain State parks that are set aside for hiking and nature enjoyment, should be able to charge a fee to help with the upkeep costs since fewer people enjoy them.

 

Peter Pollak:  Larry raises an excellent point. Should we tax a behavior just to raise revenue?  If it means covering the state's cost for protecting that activity – i.e., hunting, we're okay with that. But if we tax drivers to pay city hall's light bill we are probably on shaky ground. 

Other potential uses of congestion pricing include charging utility customers more if they run their appliances during peak use times of the day. This could ease the demand for energy, but it could also tax individuals who don't have options -- such as the elderly or infirm for whom air conditioners are critical during a heat wave. 

There is also a social engineering aspect to the debate that requires care.  For example, some would raise taxes on cigarettes, gasoline and SUVs primarily as a way to make it difficult for people to consume those products.  In a "free society" we have to be careful not to 'tax-to-death' legal behaviors just because the majority doesn't like them. 

Have we done a good job to date do you think in drawing that line? In other words, is there still room to increase the tax on tobacco products as a means of discouraging smoking by minors or are we already disproportionately penalizing adult smokers?  What about the taxes on gasoline?  Should it be increased or is it already a burden on people who need their cars to get to work?

 

Doug Boettner:  I think this entire discussion raises food for thought. Perhaps we, along with the State Legislature, should examine all the activities taxpayers fund and which of those activities are enjoyed, or otherwise utilized, by a minority of the population. How often do the many provide tax dollars for the benefit of the few? It would be an interesting exercise and may shed some light on some of the distortions.

Let’s also look at Canada as an example of how they primarily funded their national health care program. It was basically a reverse situation. They taxed the few for the benefit of the many in the form of an extreme vice tax. At one time they were placing a $5 surcharge on every pack of cigarettes sold to offset the cost of their national health plan. Only the smokers were being assessed.

 

Stuart Brody: Larry and Peter ask at what point does the society become more muscular in influencing behavior by taxation . We are starting to see more vigorous action with the advent of carbon taxes as the catastrophe of irreversible climate change comes into view.  Larry points out that congestion pricing in New York City was essentially a fund-raising tactic, rather than a meaningful way to control greenhouse gases because there were insufficient alternatives to private transportation.  While that is true, I thought it was a good start, even if the infrastructure to support a desired shift to car pools or public transportation was not fully fashioned.   Starting is important, since in this country we tend to lurch from crisis to crisis. 

The health care debate is seen as a similarly serious crisis, yet the debate is strangely silent, unlike the energy crises, about taxing over-use.  For instance, doesn’t the question have to be asked:  how long can we, as a nation afford to dispense $100,000 for the care and treatment of heart patients, no questions asked, who are overweight, smoke and show no inclination to exercise.  Our foreign policy misadventures display the same lack of concern for the depletion of resources in wealth and human treasure, and the current debate over Afghanistan is being more frequently discussed in terms of whether we can afford it any longer.

But I hasten to add, this is a different question than the public funding of benefits enjoyed by the few such as parks, the public arts, festivals, parades, roads in remote places, stocking trout streams, funding specialty museums, research into rare diseases, even space exploration.  Compared to the potentially life altering impacts of energy and health care policy,  these activities and services constitute negligible financial burdens on each individual.  Yet they are proud displays of our bounty and a public show of our commitment to the well being of everyman. 

We are ennobled by this effort and united by the public spirit that underlies these efforts  My view is that the more we can fund and the less we charge, the healthier we are and the more democratic we become.

 

Paul Bray:  Interesting discussion. Let me conclude with two items.