Ax the Tax vows to fight new Transportation Taxes

Ax the Tax ^ | 11-16-10 | Doug Guetzloe

[mission9]

AX the TAX, a highly successful grassroots political group is pledging $250,000 to fight a new proposal to establish a regional transportation authority for the Tampa Bay area that would include Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough County.

"The new urbanists and the tax and spend bureaucrats just don't get it. Rail is a two-hundred year old technology with a new millennium price tag that only serves 1% of the traveling public. The only mobility that occurs is billions of our dollars moving from the public treasury into the pockets of the vested special interests," stated Doug Guetzloe, Founder and Chairman of AX the TAX, "I guess we're just going to have stop this boondoggle proposal dead in it's tracks."

Guetzloe is a fourth generation Tampa native who grew up in Clearwater, graduating from Clearwater High School and serving as President of the Student Body at St. Petersburg Junior College, Clearwater campus.

AX the TAX, and it's Hillsborough affiliate, were heavily involved in the recent defeat of the Hillsborough County referendum that would have established a dedicated funding source for a light rail project. AX the TAX has led seven (7) successful battles for the taxpayers against rail in Florida, Texas and Virginia, never having lost rail tax battle.

AX the TAX Hillsborough is headed up by Tampa businessman and conservative activist Kevin Wright who helped to coordinate the $100,000 that AX the TAX spent opposing the recently defeated Hillsborough tax.

"We're ready to lock and load," stated Wright.

AX the TAX was founded in 1982 and since that time has helped Florida taxpayers defeat over $47.5 billion in proposed taxes in 17 successful referenda victories. During this last election cycle, AX the TAX was active in Hillsborough, Polk and Osceola counties helping taxpayers defeat an estimated $15 billion in proposed taxes in those counties.

[mission9]

Federal attempts to increase the transit base always contemplate local tax increases. Mass transit demands taxes because it is an income transfer system, not a people mover.

[screaminsunshine]

Eventually half the country will work for the IRS and the other half will be avoiding them at this rate.

[Wuli]

The Tri-county area does not have a population density (residents per square mile) to support commuter rail transport, and no matter what the traffic conditions are that same population density at some sort of peak-leisure-time would not fill enough trains on weekends to compensate for too little use by commuters during the week.

For rail use to be even modestly effective, population density is the key.

Even the U.S. Northeast, with a population density much greater than anywhere in Florida, does not truly support commuter rail transport with the price of tickets for its two largest commuter rail lines (Metro North with trains into and out of Manhattan from counties north of Manhattan and from Connecticut; and the Long Island Railroad) with fare revenue supporting 50% or less of the actual costs of operations. The next largest northeast commuter rail line, New Jersey Transit nets about 43 cents of every dollar of operating costs from fare revenue. It does have one of its lines, the Northeast Corridor Line - Trenton to Manhattan - that it breaks even on. What that “good news” tells you is that the net of 43 cents of each dollar of operating costs from fare revenue is actually much less than 43 cents on all its lines but one.

There is in fact not a single commuter rail system in the United States that even just gets its operating costs paid by fare revenues, much less any portion from fare revenue to help cover its long term capital commitments. Not one.

It is not completely the case of “old” technology. It is also the nature of any fixed-route system. Automobiles, buses and planes all have multiple options that one set of each can be employed to make, in terms of starting point and ending point and exact route between. A train and its cars can ONLY operate on the fixed route, or set of fixed routes dedicated to it.

Having fewer options on how a train’s infrastructure (capital equipment, which includes its rolling stock) can be used, more than any form of transportation, and not offering real competition with air flight, the greater the length of the trip, it is highly dependent on having a ready-and-willing population directly along its path, of a sufficient population density (people per square mile), and/or auxiliary systems of “feeder lines”, to make it truly useful to enough people to provide a reasonable income from fare revenues. The fact is, on an organic economic basis - strictly economics - NONE do.