We have previously discussed the counterproductive increases in taxes that have been implemented recently without consideration of their impact on behavior or revenue. France’s ridiculous 75 percent tax on the rich is an obvious example (now even the former French president is reportedly planning to flee the taxes for England). So is our high tax on corporations while Canada continues to lower its tax just next door. There are also reports of high earners like Tiger Woods leaving California and New York in the face of high increases. A smaller but even more moronic tax is being contemplated by Alexandria, Virginia where the city council is considering a law forcing people to register bikes so that they can be forced to pay a fee.
When most cities are trying to get people to ride bikes to reduce congestion and pollution, the Alexandria City Council will actually deter such beneficial conduct.
There is already a 25 cent registration fee on the books since 1963 but it has been wisely ignored. I can understand a voluntary registration program for theft but the tax or fee component is not a good idea. Indeed, I would not make this mandatory even as to the registration to add yet another permitting obligation on citizens.
Old Town resident Kathryn Papp had an argument in favor of the registration that only a bureaucrat would love: “Cars are registered and charged a fee. Motorcycles are registered and charged a fee. Almost every vehicle on the roadway is registered and charged a fee.” So why not bikes, scooters, and roller blades? It is a particularly bizarre argument from someone who seems to feel incomplete with the failure to require universal registration of personal items with an attendant fee. Why not just like Papp register her bikes and pay the fee?
I used to live in Old Towne as well as other parts of Alexandria. I loved my time there but the city was always a tax-heavy jurisdiction. Those taxes were often discussed by my neighbors as a reason to move out of the city. Yet, this proposal shows an almost stereotypically knee-jerk approach to taxes. The natural state for people like Papp and these council members is for things to be regulated and taxed. It even produces discomfort for people like Papp to have part of her life unregulated and untapped. Taxes are like some warm blanket of government companionship for the regulatory lonely.
This story struck a cord with me because it highlights the tendency — particularly of some liberal politicians — to treat taxes as if they occur in a vacuum with no behavioral response. People are rational actors and will conform their conduct to avoid costs or inconvenience. In this case, you have an activity which is universally viewed as beneficial to the city and the environment. The response is to now regulate and tax it. Truly bizarre.
Source: WAMU
DonS and SwM,
This is a repeat, but must show our independence and uniqueness..
Our usually pop up whenever the autumn ripened red berry tree is in fruit and the locals have not cleaned out the cupboard.
No many berries on my cottage lot so 2 day max visits.
They have more distinct markings than yours, and their song if the recording someone sent to me via a vid on the blog (SwM?) of a group feeding in a berry-rich bush is any indication (breath); and sounds more like a group of small small silver bells. seldom competing songwise. I think they signal to say: “I am and you are, and we have it good together. Others are welcome to eat with us. Come share the meal.”
Would that we humans would do this more often than at parties,, in our way of course.
Blouise,
Are you illusioning? What magic kingdom is yours? No bicycle thefts?
I guess nobody locks their doors, nor even have keys. Just like HSThompson once claimed for the mountains of Colorado.
I guess you don’t have envy, jealousy, adultery, fornication, tax cheating, etc. Watch out! They might designate you as national monument, and then come the terribly normal tourists..
Not picking on you, but you are such a straightline deliverer.
I am curious, does Virginia (a state my former-resident son says would tax the air if they could) register and tax guns as severely as they desire to do bicycles?
SWM, Id707 – Waxwings are just wonderful, and a treat to note their presence. As for migration one source says “abundant and easily recognized bird across much of North America, yet its migration patterns remain poorly understood. This is because across much of the country Cedar Waxwings are present year-round, making influxes of migrants hard to discern.. Another basically agrees ” flock movement is in a nomadic, unpredictable migration within general annual trends: waxwings are opportunistic feeders who move following the food supply. As they roam areas, they may stay in one place that provides a supply of berries and flowing water for a few days or a few weeks, then after they have been seen every day in great quantities, all of a sudden they just seem to disappear without warning.”
Darren,
RIGHT! Duuhhh, maybe so.
You can be right , while they ARE dismantling our security systems from FDR’s New Deal. That is going on now. SS is under attack. The guaranteed income pensions are replaced by a gambling pot, that is your responsibilty to manage. Nor FDR but SS was. Something to be considered.
🙂 Didn’t know that you were a bagger. Same themes. The same government level as when the Boston Party was held?
Bruce,
Keep talking, you are convincing us. But not what you think you are. (bow to gene 🙂 )
How about the Army, when did you serve last?
Or the justice system. Or the FDA, EPA, etc etc.
It is all part of the common suspense systems. Suspense? When will they betray us due to Congressional pressure of lobby pressure. Most have. Or haven’t you noticed?
SwM
With the distance, latitudinally, ie N-S, assuming yours do too, then they travel far. Are they early this year? April might be on a return journey from Mexico.
Well, all our ike lanes, are one way, on opposite sides of the street. So no BS from Cops like the stupid one north of Venice Beach. I assume you watched the vid.
Dare I say I hope all is well there at your place?
If it ain’t the corps screwing you, it is the politicos and the bureaucrats.
Blousie, sounds like I should think of moving there. Is it warm 😉
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And what P Smith said about cops not treating cyclists very well. Although it’s not the hugest problem in the world (except thatnot getting killed by motorists does rank petty high), it’d be great to have all cyclists ride reasonably, and for the cops to understand what reasonable means on a bike.
I live in a very conservative little town and we’ve always registered our bikes. Every year one goes to the police department and buys a bike license for each bike owned. The fee is based on age, 15 years and under pay less than 16 years and older.
We have well maintained bike lanes on every main road and, room permitting, on many side roads, and bike trails through all the parks.
Courtesy to bike riders and courtesy by bike riders to pedestrians is part of the social culture and theft of bikes is very low … almost nonexistent.
I can’t wait to tell all my conservative friends that they’re really liberals.
Why Bike Theft Is So Hard to Stop
by Eric Jaffe
Sep 14, 2012
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/09/why-bike-theft-so-hard-stop/3274/
Excerpts:
“The big problem, writes Dhar, is that bike thieves essentially get a free pass. (Unless you stole this guy’s bike.) Whether you’re just trying to make a few bucks on the street, or piling dozens of bikes into a van to drive hundreds of miles to sell them, there’s little chance you’ll get caught in the act. You can even try to get caught stealing your own bike in front of a police station and not get caught. “For all practical purposes, stealing a bike is risk-free crime,” he writes.
…
… [P]olice departments are reluctant to pull officers from robberies or murder investigations to hunt bike thieves. Even when they do, DAs rarely prosecute the thieves the police bring in.”
Considering how crappy cyclists are treated by the pi…uh, “cops” and how governments refuse to protect cyclists with laws (existing or creating any), the idiots doing this should go suck on a tailpipe.
No taxation without representation. Right now, there isn’t any for cyclists.
Best RFonline http://www.rfpvp.com PvP Server.
In California their changing free car pool lanes (two or more people per car) into fast track lanes which the rights to use are bought.
They already have a voluntary national bike registration program. In case of theft, it makes it easier to get a bike back. Alexandria ,as many cities do, participates. Bikes aren’t cheap and they are often stolen.
What Mike S. and Frankly said.
How about the politicians stops spending so much money? This is the fundamental problem (on the federal level certainly) It’s becoming more take, take, take by the gov’t from the citizens. It is either money or civil rights at the least.
Whatever the scheme might be, either income tax, excise tax, or whatever shifting it around is just smoke and mirrors to please certain people into a tax regime that is less politically dangerous. Either way someone has to pay for the politicians pet projects and (secondly important to them)services needed by the citizens.
What I really resent is that as soon as the pols raise one tax rate, often on the premise that revenues are low so the percentage needs to be raised, soon when the economy is doing better there is rarely seen a return back to the old tax rate percentage. Instead the pols spend more and we are back in the same position again; after, that is, the government fleeced the citizens out of more of their own money.
And must everything under the sun be regulated and registered? Why not register our forks and knives? How about wheelchairs? There does come a point where you have to ask yourself must everything in our lives be controlled by the state? Whatever happend to individual liberty?
A guy I knew who was born and raised in Holland pointed out that Hitler had done some good in Europe: He repealed the bicycle tax.
Be very careful!
Are they going to tax the general public wether a person drives or not? Like the T.S.A. being paid for by taxes from people that don’t fly or paying to keep criminals on death row alive when one believes in capital punishment.
So who’s going to pay for repairing the highways when every one drives a Prius or G.M. volt and no gas taxes are collected?
Hear! Hear! Tell it JT. These people are out of control.