> If you care to read a little ways up the thread you'll see that the parent was replying to the assertion that "drivers do pay for roads in the form of gasoline taxes".
Way to miss the point.
> Incidentally, registration fees are there to cover the cost of the beaurocracy overseeing the registration
They do more than that.
> sales tax brings in about $235 million (based on 1 car per 2 people, replaced every 10 years, selling for $15,000).
Cars are sold more often than every 10 years, the average new cost is more than $15k, and I wrote "car stuff" for a reason. There are a lot of taxed car stuff purchases other than "car sales". And, I didn't even mention other taxes on biz providing car services and purchases.
If you're going to argue that someone isn't properly accounting....
> Also, the fact that there are more car users actually doesn't tell us anything about which way the net flow of money goes
Net flow doesn't have the properties that your argument requires.
The subsidy argument says that folks who get deliveries by truck don't pay for the full cost of truck delivery in their direct payment for truck services. So, when a no-car-truck-delivery person pays a subsidy, they're actually just paying for the indirect truck-delivery costs.
And, as I've pointed out elsewhere, a huge fraction of the city costs for "cars" are required even if there isn't a single private car. Buses, "official vehicles", delivery trucks, and so on require roads. A lot of city road maintenance costs come from activities that have nothing to do with usage.
In short, you're assuming savings that can't happen.
Way to miss the point.
> Incidentally, registration fees are there to cover the cost of the beaurocracy overseeing the registration
They do more than that.
> sales tax brings in about $235 million (based on 1 car per 2 people, replaced every 10 years, selling for $15,000).
Cars are sold more often than every 10 years, the average new cost is more than $15k, and I wrote "car stuff" for a reason. There are a lot of taxed car stuff purchases other than "car sales". And, I didn't even mention other taxes on biz providing car services and purchases.
If you're going to argue that someone isn't properly accounting....
> Also, the fact that there are more car users actually doesn't tell us anything about which way the net flow of money goes
Net flow doesn't have the properties that your argument requires.
The subsidy argument says that folks who get deliveries by truck don't pay for the full cost of truck delivery in their direct payment for truck services. So, when a no-car-truck-delivery person pays a subsidy, they're actually just paying for the indirect truck-delivery costs.
And, as I've pointed out elsewhere, a huge fraction of the city costs for "cars" are required even if there isn't a single private car. Buses, "official vehicles", delivery trucks, and so on require roads. A lot of city road maintenance costs come from activities that have nothing to do with usage.
In short, you're assuming savings that can't happen.