Re:Why do poor school kids have to clean up rich commuters’ ...
by 3rdgender on Friday March 08, 2019 @05:20AM
(#19336417)
I think the argument that they should pay extra taxes for that specific road is very strange. I think in generally they pay fuel tax and maybe something on cars (don't know the US system), and in theory that should pay for the roads and other externalities. It could just be distributed so that places with more pollution get more money.
Of course it's possible they don't pay enough, but that has nothing to do with that particular school.
Re:Why do poor school kids have to clean up rich commuters’ ...
by mcv on Friday March 08, 2019 @07:46AM
(#19337038)
I'm not saying they should pay some extra toll for that stretch of road, I'm just pointing out that they're not paying for the damage they're causing. The school or the kids aren't receiving money for the damage that's caused by the pollution from those cars.
Re:Why do poor school kids have to clean up rich commuters’ ...
by 3rdgender on Friday March 08, 2019 @05:19PM
(#19342758)
If that's the case, I don't think it is their fault. The tax collectors should then distribute the taxes they collected in a different way.
Also, it stands to debate of the kids are forced to live in the pollution.
While the article mentions that the school was there before the highway, the students were probably not born yet. So they (or their parents) made a choice to live there and go to that school.
As the article points out, and as has been known for decades, car drivers don't pay for most of the external costs they cause, and this is an excellent example of that.