Saturday, September 10, 2011

User Fees: The Conservative's Tax Of Choice

For everyone who can't avoid it, that is.

I remember when Maryland had the misfortune to have Bob Ehrlich as governor for four wasted years.  To keep his pledge to not raise income taxes on anyone, he jacked up everything else, including and especially user fees.  A small business now has to pay $300.00 per year just to keep their organization in good standing with the State of Maryland's Department of Assessments and Taxation.

User fees were always intended to be a supplementary, and not primary, source of revenue for public funding--a way of splitting the difference between the individual user of a service and the society that indirectly benefits from the existence of the service.  The simple truth, however, is that no public service can or should be effectively paid for only by its direct users. 

Take the military, for example.  There are direct beneficiaries, such as those who serve in uniform and the private companies that supply them.  And the rest of us are indirect beneficiaries of the security they provide.  On the other hand, imagine trying to fund a war on "user fees."  We would then have to be asking everyone to make sacrifices that would literally be impossible.  World War II, however was fought and one because everyone was involved--and in a variety of ways:  military service, private contracting, victory gardens, scrap drives and (yes) higher taxes on everyone.  All of these methods together are far less burdensome than any one of them alone.

As World War II proved, we're stronger when we stand together than when we stand alone.  That's why Ayn Rand's "philosophy" exists only in books, not in reality.

No comments: