Have you wanted to take a shot at fixing the T's budget deficit? Now you can!
There's a website, put together by a member of the T's Rider Oversight Committee, that allows you to fiddle around with income and expenditures in an attempt to balance things out. Have fun!
Help Fill The MBTA's Deficit Hole!
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Comments
I decreased service 10
By ShadyMilkMan
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 4:14pm
I decreased service 10 percent on weekends, increased the sales tax by .25 percent, added ten cents to the gas tax and called it a day.
Problem solved. Toss in an extra .05 percent for the sales tax and I will save those animals too.
Zoo & T
By Suldog
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 4:29pm
MY WIFE says they should close the zoo and train the animals to do many of the jobs now being done by T personnel. I believe she was being facetious, but I imagine putting a lion into a T Police uniform would tend to cut down on fare evasion.
She also suggested making every Charlie Ticket a scratch ticket, to increase sales.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Oh imagine if it was like a
By ShadyMilkMan
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 4:45pm
Oh imagine if it was like a slot machine, every ticket you slid into the machine would result in a chance to win. You would have lines of old ladies just walking in and out of the train station for another chance to play. If you win little green lights flash all over the station.
I added 10 cents to the gas
By Frank G
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 4:37pm
I added 10 cents to the gas tax, 1% to the sales tax, and a 15% fare hike. Problem solved. There is even a surplus to pay down the MBTA debt.
I added 17 cents to the gas
By anon
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 6:47pm
I added 17 cents to the gas tax and didn't need to do anything else, but that's not really how I would want to approach the problem.
I'd prefer to fund the MBTA directly out of the general fund, rather than tie them to any particular type of revenue. Provided that the numbers can be worked out, I'd sooner increase fuel taxes and vehicle registrations in areas served by mass transit, while reducing fares and increasing service and expanding coverage, and reassessing the roads (Can we build and maintain them more cheaply? Should the commonwealth have a policy of encouraging/enabling people to live in less densely populated areas than they might, by providing taxpayer-funded roads?). Also eliminating the sales tax altogether (it is regressive) and relying more on the upper brackets of the income tax.
Of course, the MBTA does need serious internal reform or even reorganization as well. Just giving them more money won't really help. We need to make sure that the people there know what to do with it.
You have my vote
By neilv
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 7:09pm
Though I could use more convincing on eliminating sales tax. I like various ways of taxing tourists, and I like various ways of taxing luxury consumption (since it seems difficult to tax income of the wealthy).
I don't have a problem with
By anon
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 8:06pm
I don't have a problem with getting tourists, so long as it doesn't deter them coming. So target them with taxes on hotel rooms or vacation rentals, on rental cars (although since we're trying to soak tourists here, don't tax car sharing services so heavily, as they're mainly used by locals), on taxis (in areas with public transit, during hours the transit is running), etc.
But sales taxes don't hit tourists more than the locals. In fact, eliminating them could not only stop encouraging us to go to NH for big ticket items, it could draw in people from NY, CT, and RI, at least unless and until they get rid of those too.
The main issue though is that sales taxes are regressive. While I can see having some use-based taxes here and there, I think that taxes should generally be progressive, so that those who are best able to bear them, do. I agree that collecting what's owed by people who can afford to invest in fighting over every penny is difficult, but ultimately I think that's the way we'll need to go. Otherwise we'll just be allowing them to bully us into taxing the poor disproportionately, and it should be pretty obvious that that won't work out at all.
A lot of this needs to be addressed nationally, though. Freedom of movement within the US is great, but it makes it pretty easy to suffer from races to the bottom when the states compete.
It is always a losing
By ShadyMilkMan
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 9:23pm
It is always a losing argument when you begin parsing. Taxing rental cars but not car sharing will cause an uproar and would kill the whole thing. Ditto for taxing taxis "near" mass transit while its running. How do you manage such a system? You are creating hordes of lobbyists with a specialty in reducing taxi taxes. Next thing you know it the taxi in New Bedford will be taxed while the Beacon Hill/Back Bay taxi gets an exemption.
National
By neilv
Mon, 07/13/2009 - 9:34pm
Given the national context, and assuming for the sake of argument that it will not change in the near term, would you still immediately eliminate MA sales tax as part of an atomic set of MA measures?
I cut THE RIDE service 999% to balance the budget
By anon
Wed, 07/15/2009 - 5:00pm
I cut funding for one item 999%, and that balanced the budget. I think there is a bug.