Virginia Centrist asks why the Virginia legislature (Republicans in particular) seem fit to raise every fee in the Commonwealth rather than raise taxes:
What’s the difference between tax increases and fee increases? Not much, except for the fact that fee increases arbitrarily hit random segments of the population. Simple tax increases (like a gas tax increase or a sales tax increase) are relatively well spread out usually and hit every person evenly.
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You know what I want to see? An increase in the corporate income tax. Ok, not really. But it would be interesting to see the pro-business groups like the Chamber react if GA came after them for extra money to improve the congestion that is “stifling commerce” instead of mining the Virginia code for sneaky fees to increase. Not in a million years would the Chamber support that. And you can’t blame them – it’s their job to fight for business interests. But it’s worth calling them out on it. At some point, if business interests want better infrastructure, then they’re going to have to pay for it (to borrow a phrase used by nearly every “moderate” pro-business group in the Commonwealth).
There’s a good reason for endorsing the idea of user fees vs. taxation, being those who use the services should ideally pay for them. It’s free market vs. statism.
Unfortunately, what’s happening is that we are raising all sorts of fees in Virgnia, but not lowering any of the income, property, BPOL, car, sales, or other taxes across the board.
It would be great to move to a system where a moderate income tax augmented by user fees would be the way we do business in Virginia. Unfortunately, there is very little vision lighting that way today.