Tom Ashcraft provides a valuable reminder that repealing the transit tax removes a tax. And removes a tax from a jurisdiction that should have plenty of revenue without it.
We also need to remember that the dedicated tax mechanism is a kind of fraud. As Mayor Pat McCrory has said, he would just raise property taxes — or try to — to replace the half-cent revenue. What this tells us it that the half-cent essentially enables the city and county to pay for a popular program — mass transit, in some form — from a dedicated source. This frees up property tax and general sales tax revenue to fund less popular things — things like Whitewater Centers or the Mayor’s International Cabinet.
As such, the half-cent tax enables more total government spending, and I would say more wasteful government spending.
