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davis_squareDear fellow car drivers friends and neighbors,
The City is counting on you to park longer than 48 hours in one place, to not remember which day is street cleaning on your side, and to forget to give your out-of-town friends and relatives visitor passes instantly when they arrive at your place. I know what you're thinking, that the City wants its residents, workers, and visitors to abide by the laws, not break them.
Alas, the FY2010 municipal budget (pdf) has already been written with the expectation of approx $8.7 million from parking fines (up $1.5 million from last year) plus change in surcharges, towing fees, and moving violations. So, unless you want the city to face cut-backs in police, fire, and education, you'd better start parking within 20 feet of an intersection and leaving your car on the street during your week-long vacation. The City has even adjusted its parking policies to help facilitate this new revenue increase.
But seriously, if the City is going to rely on this regressive form of taxation, shouldn't we at least expect the burden to fall somewhat equitably around the city? And how does Somerville compare to surrounding communities in terms of its parking enforcement policies? If you'd like to help us find out the answers to these and other parking related questions, then please consider pledging what you can to our new $500 fund-raiser to hire an investigative journalist. To join our campaign or leave a comment, please head on over to the Somerville Voices blog and thanks!
Sincerely,
Barry Rafkind
The City is counting on you to park longer than 48 hours in one place, to not remember which day is street cleaning on your side, and to forget to give your out-of-town friends and relatives visitor passes instantly when they arrive at your place. I know what you're thinking, that the City wants its residents, workers, and visitors to abide by the laws, not break them.
Alas, the FY2010 municipal budget (pdf) has already been written with the expectation of approx $8.7 million from parking fines (up $1.5 million from last year) plus change in surcharges, towing fees, and moving violations. So, unless you want the city to face cut-backs in police, fire, and education, you'd better start parking within 20 feet of an intersection and leaving your car on the street during your week-long vacation. The City has even adjusted its parking policies to help facilitate this new revenue increase.
But seriously, if the City is going to rely on this regressive form of taxation, shouldn't we at least expect the burden to fall somewhat equitably around the city? And how does Somerville compare to surrounding communities in terms of its parking enforcement policies? If you'd like to help us find out the answers to these and other parking related questions, then please consider pledging what you can to our new $500 fund-raiser to hire an investigative journalist. To join our campaign or leave a comment, please head on over to the Somerville Voices blog and thanks!
Sincerely,
Barry Rafkind
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Re: Perhaps the OP means that...
Date: 2009-08-27 12:08 pm (UTC)By your definition, there are almost no regressive taxes. I believe the most common usage is as others have pointed out - regressive with respect to ability to pay.
Sales tax is commonly described as regressive, and yet we all pay the same amount on a given item. It's regressive because it hits the necessities we all buy, putting a proportionately higher burden on the low income.
Re: Perhaps the OP means that...
Date: 2009-08-27 12:33 pm (UTC)That's not MY definition. That's an economic textbook's definition. That's what a regressive tax IS.
And, yes, there aren't that many regressive taxes. For obvious reasons, intentionally regressive taxes aren't terribly popular or viewed as effective methods of revenue collection. Any taxes that are regressive tend to be de facto regressive, like the cigarette tax (it dings everybody the same, but the further down the brackets you go, the more smokers you find).