Where are people opposed to taxes being used to fund fire departments, and why?
Why don't we see public transportation as one of your "public goods"?
Is it possible those people who you say are so concerned about value are maybe not seeing how they gain from having public transportation for their community, or are they more concerned about someone else deriving more value from a service than they would?
By definition, public goods must be non-excludable. Public transportation is excludable.
> Is it possible those people who you say are so concerned about value are maybe not seeing how they gain from having public transportation for their community, or are they more concerned about someone else deriving more value from a service than they would?
The problem isn't that the value to someone else is greater than the value to them. It's that what they'd pay for it in taxes is greater than the value to them.
The commenter seems to be talking about the part of public transportation that isn’t excludable.
It doesn't need to be profitable, but if it isn't, then the money to subsidize it needs to come from somewhere. Do you think raising taxes for this would be politically popular, especially if most taxpayers wouldn't use it?
> As a public service, do we ask fire departments to be profitable?
It is politically popular to use tax dollars to fund fire departments.
> Should armed forces be made to be profitable?
This is a textbook example of a public good. You can't give national defense only to people who pay for it. Either the whole country has it or nobody does.
> How do you define profitability in the first place... how do you define the costs and benefits?
This seems fairly obvious: if the income from fares exceeds the costs to pay the drivers, maintain the vehicles, etc.
> Why does this question only ever seem to come up when we're talking about things that raise quality of life for the poor?
Because people don't like paying for things that they don't get value from, even if other people do.