"It's the largest tax increase in history!"

"Actually, it's the smallest tax increase in history."
-Lisa Simpson

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on a plan to save Pennsylvania's public transportation systems from massive service cuts and fare increases by raising some of the fees paid by drivers when they register their cars each year. Rural residents are crying foul, Republicans are freaking out about tax increases and the transit agencies are preparing draconian plans.

It's the fees that are the problem, not the plans to raise them:

"Existing fees in yesterday's proposal have not risen since the early 1980s, [Gov. Ed] Rendell said. They include a hike in the motor vehicle rental fee from $2 to $4 and a $1 to $3 surcharge for the purchase of new tires. Evans proposed raising the $5 fee for a driver's record to $12 and a new $2 fee for the auto-emissions sticker."

In this age of politics by distortion and gut feeling, that's four tax increases for Rendell should they pass, making an inconsequential revenue adjustment seem like the Death Knell of the Middle Class. When he runs for re-election, those fee increases will be added into a number of other smallish service charges that get hiked occasionally to keep up with inflation and rolled into an ad that accuses Rendell of "increasing taxes 163 times on working families" or some such similar nonsense. It's disingenuous, but it works.

Politics aside, why should there be 20 little fees every time you go to the DMV? How come you have to pay for every little sticker and stamp that comes along with owning a car? Flat fees are a form of regressive taxation that don't take into account the cost of the car and create a situation where more DMV workers are handling cash than is probably ideal. Why not assess a fee as a percentage of a car's Blue Book value that covers all testing and permits for the year? It saves time, administrative costs and the automatic legislative donnybrook of increasing the fee with inflation every few years.*

This should probably be done for transit fees as well. Bus and subway fares stay the same for years and are then raised by transit officials who threaten the imminent death of the system without a fare increase. Every consumer, commuter, poverty and civil rights group comes out of woodwork to complain. A few public comment meetings are filled with shouting and charges of racism, the fare gets raised anyway, and the process begins anew. Why not just raise the fee with inflation, rounded to the nearest dime? It prevents massive budget gap projections that hinder planning ability and cuts out most of the shouting.

*Of course, locking Grover Norquist in a basement with duct tape on his mouth would help ease the fee-increasing process as well. While impractical, it never hurts to dream.