Re:UK Rail services to come under unified state control
by pydry on Thursday May 20, 2021 @06:59AM
(#27219604)
>Yes. It's just really hard to do afterwards - having the government expropriate land around the stations and giving it to the railway companies is guaranteed to be wildly expensive and unpopular.
Expropriation of land would be unpopular (it would get the tabloids in a jitter as they fearmonger that the government is going to expropriate your garden next) but introducing a special tax on nonresidential property within 500m of a train station and subsidizing the price of tickets with it - probably not so much.
"Oh look my season ticket got cheaper" while private equity reports lower earnings and google's tax bill shoots up - this is going to be popular.
It could then be extended to residential property. The government could also go into business itself - building a shopping mall or two and funding government budgets.
Expropriation of land would be unpopular (it would get the tabloids in a jitter as they fearmonger that the government is going to expropriate your garden next) but introducing a special tax on nonresidential property within 500m of a train station and subsidizing the price of tickets with it - probably not so much.
"Oh look my season ticket got cheaper" while private equity reports lower earnings and google's tax bill shoots up - this is going to be popular.
It could then be extended to residential property. The government could also go into business itself - building a shopping mall or two and funding government budgets.
This is a frog that could be boiled.