Credit for Free

The Dire Straits of Pigovian Taxes

You cannot get your chicks for free, but you could get carbon credits for free. And if you do not use them sell them at a market price to some rich bastard. Transfer nominal wealth around a bit. Reverse the rentierism.

In Aotearoa New Zealand we are doing things neoliberally again, ass backwards, and face to the shyte fan. As usual. Both Labour and the Tories.

Reading this article on the NZ governments proposed road taxes was infuriating. My brother wrote me:

Reading this article helps to drive home the fundamental difference between the MMT framework and current (mis)understanding, especially the second paragraph.

I beleive the statement was something like:

“Petrol cars could start being hit with road user charges (RUCs) as early as 2027, as the government begins its overhaul of land transport funding. Road construction and maintenance is funded through the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), which is largely made up of revenue from petrol taxes, and RUCs paid by drivers of electric and diesel vehicles.
     “Speaking at the Building Nations conference in Auckland on Thursday, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced a roadmap for moving all light vehicles to the RUC system and away from fuel tax. According to the new ‘Revenue Action Plan’, legislation would be progressed next year with a “possible” start date for the petrol car shift-over set for 2027. Improvements would be made to the system through 2026 in preparation.
     “Brown said the transition would ensure all road users — regardless of their vehicle — were contributing fairly to road upkeep.”

And here am I thinking Tories were all for lowering the tax burden?

They obviously do not understand MMT. Becasue MMT tells them they can lower NZ taxes. With no dire straits economic consequences.

It all makes me extremely irate. These pigovian taxes on activities poor people cannot avoid are obscenely regressive. Do the policy makers think the rich bastards will use the roads less? Or will poor people be able to avoid the charges to simply live & work? Or that the government does not need the revenue in order to be able to spend on better infrastructure? Maybe at the margins. But it is all backwards. I personally cannot wait to see a successful and popular ration credit scheme for something… anything! 

Caveat

I could not stomach reading the entire policy statement. So if I am doing the government an injustice please just take this short article as a fictional story of what I might complain about were the pigovian taxes truly regressive.