November 14, 2004

YOU USE IT? YOU PAY FOR IT:

City budget gap is patched with millions in fee hikes (FRAN SPIELMAN, November 14, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)

Boat owners, clout-heavy lobbyists, motorists who illegally tie up disabled parking spaces and festivals in need of police services would be asked to share the pain through $10.3 million in fees tied to Mayor Daley's 2005 budget.

No fewer than 17 different fees will either be raised or imposed for the first time next year -- and that's in addition to the higher taxes Chicagoans will have to pay on everything from sales, cigarettes, liquor and natural gas to parking, amusements, hotel rooms and car rentals.

Daley's $76.6 million tax package is designed to erase a $220 million shortfall. The $10.3 million in fee increases have a dramatically different purpose: to alter negative behavior or recover costs where private benefits exist.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 14, 2004 10:59 AM
Comments

A problem is in defining 'private benefits': benefits that inure to individuals other than for the public good. An afterschool City Park gymnastics program?

And I notice that they're going to tax the outsider more: hotel rooms and car rentals. That has nothing to do with privatizing the public benefit. And it can be counterproductive, to boot.

Posted by: old maltese at November 14, 2004 11:18 AM

They could save some money by discontinuing the Dead People Voter Registration Bureau.

Posted by: AllenS at November 14, 2004 11:34 AM

Using user fees/taxes to plug gaps is a winning strategy for tax and spend pols. In essence, tax hikers get to debate only the most sensible of taxes (in this, I don't disagree with oj) without addressing the bulk of the tax-and-spend baseline that creates (and perpetuates) the gaps to begin with. (And, of course, none of these taxes is ever deemed a tax deduction against income taxes.)

At the end, you get taxed and spent to death, but you don't seem to mind it so much. Why not trade support of these new taxes, but only in the context of tax overhaul?

Posted by: Moe from NC at November 14, 2004 11:37 AM

Republicans across the country have used this to good effect.

Posted by: jsmith at November 14, 2004 12:08 PM

YOU USE IT? YOU PAY FOR IT

Well, OJ, so maybe some libertarian ideas aren't so bad after all?

Posted by: PapayaSF at November 14, 2004 1:52 PM

"You use it, you pay for it" is fine, but then you don't need government.

Posted by: David Cohen at November 14, 2004 1:55 PM
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