Washington State Representative Ed Orcutt is of the opinion that bicycle riders deserved to be taxed similarly to motorists because they both share the road that motorists use AND produce greenhouse gases. By breathing.
I mean, I guess I see the logic behind the first part. But taxes based on increased respiration? Really?
As a bit of background, there exists legislation in Washington that would levy a 5 percent tax against new bicycles priced $500 or more. Orcutt was contacted by constituent Dale Carson, who opposed the tax. Carson then received the mother of all head-scratching responses, which is copied in part below.
From Cascade Bicycle Club:
…you claim that it is environmentally friendly to ride a bike. But if I am not mistaken, a cyclists has an increased heart rate and respiration. That means that the act of riding a bike results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider. Since CO2 is deemed to be a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride.
In his letter to Carson, Orcutt also argues that he feels that bicyclists should be paying taxes based on the fact that, as things are, they use roads that motorists use and pay for…which makes sense, I guess. Though by that logic, you’re also going to have start taxing pedestrians for walking, then damn near everybody for stepping fut onto public property. SLIPPERY SLOPE, PEOPLE.
At least Orcutt appears to have acknowledged that what he said was completely dumb in a response to Seattle Bike Blog, which noted that taxes on motorists provide only one quarter of the Washington State Department of Transportation budget. From Orcutt’s response:
My point was that by not driving a car, a cyclist was not necessarily having a zero-carbon footprint. In looking back, it was not a point worthy of even mentioning so, again, I apologize — both for bringing it up and for the wording of the e-mail.
‘Atta boy, Orcutt. Good job both for being a Republican that actually supports a tax increase and for not uttering the obscenely stupid “sorry if I offended anyone” line.
Just make absolutely sure you know what you’re talking about before you start shooting off emails next time.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2013.
Nice to see that Arizona doesn’t have the patent on dumb legislators…
“In his letter to Carson, Orcutt also argues that he feels that bicyclists should be paying taxes based on the fact that, as things are, they use roads that motorists use and pay for…which makes sense, I guess.”
You know, I’ve heard this utterly moronic argument many times from right-wing trolls, but it’s really discouraging to hear erstwhile rational people repeat it and give it any credence.
For the 1000th time, this argument DOES NOT MAKE A LICK OF SENSE. Here’s two really simple reasons why.
1) The vast majority of bicyclists also drive cars–therefore, they DO pay for the roads, just like everyone else.
2) Riding a bicycle on a road does almost nothing to degrade the road’s quality or durability or anything else that would generate the need for maintenance or new construction. Taken to the extreme, if everyone rode bikes, we would spend a tiny fraction of what we spend now on stoopid roads.
Taken together, these two facts mean that bicyclists are actually getting charged MORE than their fair share of taxes for road maintenance and construction. DUH.
If you really wanted to make a coherent argument on this point, it would be this: There should be a system that allows people who commute daily on bicycles to pay a reduced license fee for their cars, or even get a rebate from the vast billions of dollars that are devoted to roads every year. That would not only be fairer, it might even encourage more people to ride bicycles more often, which would save lots of taxpayer money that would otherwise be wasted on the never-ending bonfire of road maintenance and construction.