Thread by @PghGreenLeft

If it isn't specifically a tax on the ruling class's wealth, then it's effectively a tax on the poor. This will hurt struggling folks that rely on rideshare or delivery apps to make an income while asking for nothing from those app's capitalist owners.

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1375448566865485833

The "user pays" principle Buttigieg is talking about is the right-wing doctrine that pretends the poor and wealthy are equals in the market and should each pay the same rate. On the surface this sounds "fair" to libertarians but it hides a MASSIVE power/wealth differential.

So let's talk about roads for a moment here. Buttigieg and conservative Dems want to use "mileage" as the way to set the tax but this is the wrong metric to use in many ways. The vast majority of road infrastructure spending is on *repair*, so you want to know what causes damage.

Heavy weight on the road is one of the major things that causes damage. Weight causes stress and eventually fractures where the road can crumble causing big cracks, potholes, landslides, etc. This points to heavy vehicles as being the major cause for road infrastructure spending.

And not by a little -- a lot! We might intuitively think the damage scales "linearly" with weight -- that is, a car that weighs twice as much as the average car will cause about twice as much damage and cost twice as much in repairs. But that is NOT the case.

The civil engineering formula to calculate road damage isn't linear, it varies as the 4th power of weight. (Look, a case where algebra and polynomials comes back and is important!)

What that means is: a car that weighs twice as much actually causes about 16 TIMES the damage.

So here's the kicker: big trucks -- 18 wheelers and what not -- weigh the same (at least when loaded down with products to transport) as dozens of small cars. Or according to the formula, 18 wheelers will literally do HUNDREDS OF TIMES MORE DAMAGE than anyone's small car.

The result is something like 98% of all road damage actually comes from heavy machinery and big trucks, NOT personal vehicles.

If you wanted to be "fair", then transportation companies should be paying pretty much the entire bill. But that's not what Buttigieg talks about.

Now that's just the vehicles themselves. In the age of ridesharing apps and Amazon delivery, the companies themselves don't own very many vehicles, they actually expect contractors to buy and use the vehicles for company work.

So what this does is offload the cost of those vehicles to potentially small contractors so that the large companies can avoid the costs. Not only vehicle maintenance but, if this proposal went through, mileage tax. The contractor (individuals) would be expected to pay it.

Of course, many of these contractors and drivers get paid "by the contract" an equivalent rate of very nearly minimum wage. So this tax would hit the poor workers the hardest, and let large corporations off the hook entirely despite their business making up most of the "use"!

This particularly hits hard in the absence of strong labor protections, stuff like oh I don't know, A $15 MINIMUM WAGE. Folks won't get raises, but will be expected to pay more taxes & take on more bills on behalf of their employers that keep the profits but no responsibility.

The combination of no minimum wage increase, no medicare for all, and very mild temporary aid to workers during COVID, with proposed changes like this mileage tax, show the Biden administration is overseeing more wealth transfer to the top & starting to think austerity moves.

In a few months, when they've determined COVID is more or less "done", Biden will begin announcing changes to "reel in the debt" from the relief bill.

This will be the start of bipartisan austerity that will see Biden work with Republicans to cut social programs ("spending").

We've got to push back hard on Biden and Democrats for multiple reasons. Firstly, they shouldn't be doing this to begin with -- we need much, MUCH more relief than what has been given so far. TRUMP has technically given more checks out than Dems so far! Pathetic.

But secondly, if Democrats DON'T take strong social action to curb poverty, debt, and economic failings, the anger felt by the population will grow into a "Throw the bums out!" mood by 2024 -- if not 2022! -- and Republicans will ride that wave to do EVEN MORE damage.

To put it another way, for all the AOC Dems out there: DEFENDING FAILING DEM POLICY & ATTACKING CRITICS IS NOT HARM REDUCTION.

The way to reduce harm is to actually get strong socialist policy enacted & be seen fighting hard for it. Anything less fails & empowers the right wing.