> The price will determine how poor you have to be to get forced to do without so the wealthy can benefit from an increase in quality of life.
Doesn't that basically describe access to all scarce resources?
If you don't like the idea of money being used as a way to allocate scarce resources then another way to look at it is forcing people to pay for negative externalities (traffic, pollution). And I don't see why poor people should have to pay less for creating the same negative externalities.
> Why should my taxes get used to build infrastructure that's going to be subjected to congestion pricing that prices me out of using that infrastructure?
I think the arguments here are
1. Rich people pay a much higher percentage of the cost of the infrastructure. If you're so poor then you might not be paying for any of it anyway.
2. You still benefit from the infrastructure - fire trucks, police cars and deliveries are all using the roads to your benefit, even if you don't even drive on them
3. This is very similar to someone saying "why should I pay for roads when I don't own a car?"
4. It's also similar to "why should I pay for schools when I don't have a kid?" These things better society as a whole even if you don't use them directly*
I can agree with a lot of that, but part of what I don't like is when I pay for luxury things I can't use. For example, if the city decides to subsidize a stadium, but I can't afford tickets to any events, how do I benefit from paying for part of that via property taxes?
Or another example would be post-secondary education. Where I live it's partially subsidized, so my taxes go towards it even if I can't afford to attend. Sure, there's an overall benefit to having an educated population, but I'm being forced to subsidize other peoples' educations and they benefit directly in the form of increased earning potential which translates into a better standard of living.
I don't have kids and I don't have a problem paying taxes for fully subsidized K-12 education where everyone gets access no matter what.
> For example, if the city decides to subsidize a stadium, but I can't afford tickets to any events, how do I benefit from paying for part of that via property taxes?
I suspect the economic benefits for this kind of thing may not actually hold up, but the argument there would be that you benefit from the new stadium because it creates jobs and attracts spending in your city, which results in a bunch of benefits that you do get to appreciate (new restaurants, more tax revenue, more job opportunities etc) even if you never attend an event at the stadium.
Doesn't that basically describe access to all scarce resources?
If you don't like the idea of money being used as a way to allocate scarce resources then another way to look at it is forcing people to pay for negative externalities (traffic, pollution). And I don't see why poor people should have to pay less for creating the same negative externalities.
> Why should my taxes get used to build infrastructure that's going to be subjected to congestion pricing that prices me out of using that infrastructure?
I think the arguments here are
1. Rich people pay a much higher percentage of the cost of the infrastructure. If you're so poor then you might not be paying for any of it anyway.
2. You still benefit from the infrastructure - fire trucks, police cars and deliveries are all using the roads to your benefit, even if you don't even drive on them
3. This is very similar to someone saying "why should I pay for roads when I don't own a car?"
4. It's also similar to "why should I pay for schools when I don't have a kid?" These things better society as a whole even if you don't use them directly*