I think that “pricing” is a neutral enough term; I can’t tell if it has an actual positive implication or if I just feel one because I’ve been longing for c.p. for a few years. “Fee” is more negative, but still pretty neutral. And “congestion tax” is openly intended to demonize the concept by its opponents. Like “death tax.” But I think these linguistic games lose their power when people realize that they do not have to pay the horrible tax in question. Non-smokers shrug their shoulders when cigarette taxes go up. And if regular people had any clue how unlikely it is they will have the wealth to be levied an estate tax, repealing the “death tax” would not get the majority support it does get in polls calling it such. But a tax on driving? Shrug. If you don’t like it, take the train like everyone else.

Congestion pricing (“charging” usually, in London?) where you pay a charge or fee is just what economists called the model, and it doesn’t need any more names. If opponents want to spin their wheels with a hostile rebranding campaign that ultimately has little sway over a population that by overwhelming majority does not drive into the zone, whatever.

A tax is a charge that has nothing to do with other costs. That is, it is a fundraiser. Taxes are not levied on all citizens. Cigarette taxes are not levied on all citizens.

The difference between a tax and a fee is very simple. A fee indicates that the administration of something costs money, so therefore we need to charge you a fee to break even. A fee covers costs.

A tax is a charge that doesn’t have anything to do with the cost of administration. Instead, it is a levie on some other thing, and is meant to raise money. In the case of congestion pricing, this really isn’t a bad thing at all. Especially in the light that the user fee wouldn’t even begin to cover the cost of operating these roads and the transit system, to boot. It is meant to raise money for transit, though.

User fees are not meant to raise money.

I don’t know where exactly this would fall. I would hesitate to call it a tax, because it’s not that much money.

We should just call it what it is: A price of entry. It is a price to use the road. It’s a disincentive to use road space. It’s a toll. It’s a fare.

Patton, who also read to Paterson, recalled that Basil Paterson wanted to send a car to take his son from his home in Hempstead to Hofstra, but David Paterson declined, opting instead to either hail his own cab or even bike from home to campus.

In other words, this is one politician who won’t be trying to tell us that bikes aren’t transportation.

WIT THE NEW TAX PLAN IT IS A TAX MILLIONS OF DALLARS BUT NOT FOR YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

“Brooklyn and I,” can you at least read what other people are saying, not just repeat the same rant?

This is a tax that we won’t pay, because we don’t drive! The money is supposed to go to our neighborhoods, though – street trees, repavings, sidewalk extensions! If you read the news articles, you’d see that.

Classmates remember Paterson at Hofstra

BY TIMOTHY ROBERTSON | lidesk@newsday.com
March 14, 2008

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-liread0315,0,6742130.story

For New York City Councilman David Weprin, reading to his blind friend David Paterson during their law school days was more a learning experience than a teaching experience.

“The amazing thing about David is that I read the material to him, but he absorbed it better than I did,” Weprin (D-Hollis) said Friday.

“I would read to him, and then go back to him for the information and he would spit it back to me. Even though I read to him, I didn’t necessarily comprehend it,” he said. “My short-term memory wasn’t as good as his.” (con’t…)

AND EVERY BROOKLYN POLITICIAN WHO WILL SUPPORT A NEW TAX WILL PAY THE FULL
PRICE OF IT !!!