Pittsburgh To Tax Students 344
societyofrobots writes "Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has proposed taxing college and professional students for the privilege of receiving an education in the city. The proposed tax will charge students in the city at a rate of 1% of their yearly tuition — which, at Carnegie Mellon, would mean roughly a $400 tax (PDF) on most students. As the tax proposal hit local media outlets this week, the mayor repeatedly emphasized the burden that college students have placed on city services, and the need for students to pay their 'fair share.'"
dumb idea (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a way to dumb down the city.
Student effect on economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
pay their 'fair share.' (Score:5, Insightful)
They already do shithead Mayor. Students pay:
- property tax (included in the school's tuition and the dorm room rental fees)
- sales tax (by buying local products)
- gas tax or road tolls (when they drive around)
This story reminds me of Baltimore City Council, which keeps trying to tax neighboring counties on the theory that suburban folks work in the city, or visit the Raven stadium, but don't pay taxes. (Except that they do - via state income tax and sales tax and providing income to stadium/restaurant/other inner city workers.) Same stupid first-order level of thinking. These politicians need to dig deeper.
Re:Student effect on economy (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you mean students don't pay taxes like other residents? Do they get exemptions from sales and gas taxes? Do their landlords not pay property taxes that get included in the rents they pay? If they take jobs in the city don't they pay state income taxes that get partially recycled to the city?
Politicians always come up with a bullshit reason (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:dumb idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Can I ask you why you think the parent thought that there was anything wrong with the spelling or grammar in the grandparent?
The parent clearly and obviously wanted to imply that the city already is dumb, so it's too late to dumb it down. I don't see how this relates in any way to the correctness of the English in the grandparent.
Re:dumb idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, chances are even someone with a $40,000 scholarship will have to pay that $400.
Re:pay their 'fair share.' (Score:5, Insightful)
These politicians need to dig deeper.
They are...into your pockets.
Students are always unappreciated. This is sick. (Score:1, Insightful)
As a former student used to getting shit on by the city and cops I have these points to make:
1. Pay to much rent to live in a campus apartment.
2. Pay to much to eat on campus.
3. Pay to much to buy liquor on campus.
4. Pay for professors and related expenses.
5. Support a lot of local business.
6. Do volunteer work and (they may not like this) get politically active.
7. Work for next to nothing.
8. Support sports programs - big money on my campus.
9. Pay big fines when the cops bust us for anything.
With all of the goods and services that we consume, how is it that students don't pay their fair share?
Universities often times are the single largest economic drivers in their cities precisely because of students.
Does this apply to 2 year schools where often times the poorest oldest students go?
The notion of trying to tax people trying to improve their lives simply because they are trying to improve their lives is sick.
Why not tax some rich assholes paying only 15% on their dividend income - raise property taxes in nice neighborhoods.
reality: students are constantly fucked over (Score:2, Insightful)
It makes no sense to me why when budgets need to be slashed it's always the students who get it first. In California, students just had their tuitions hiked 32% [cnn.com] per semester.
It's insane and incredibly backward-looking. CA has a $20+ billion budget shortfall, and an insane political process that requires a supermajority vote to pass a tax increase-- or any budget at all.
As a result, anyone can block anything that even hints at revenue collection, and it's a total clusterfuck.
And students are the first in line to feel the pain.
(don't tell me how cutting taxes stimulates the economy and raises money and the laffer curve and supply side and fleeing jobs and all that... CA's economy has been "stimulated" in this manner for a generation, and it's still fucked.)
wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
As a CMU student (sort of), this doesn't surprise me, and I invite Luke Ravenstahl to kiss my poor ass. Considering this guy prioritizes money in the most bogo-riffic ways (e.g. spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on fancy trash cans sporting his name [kdka.com]) it seems clear he is not and has not been fit to run the city.
Pittsburgh's new economy is fueled by the universities*. Everybody knows this. Taxing the students---those people least able to pay---is akin to cannibalism.
Of course, what will happen is students will just borrow a bit more and stack on a little more debt. So maybe Luke's idea is to get students to hedge their futures on his present financial problems.
* And the Steelers
Oh the Burden of Soon to be Educated and Employed (Score:4, Insightful)
And while we're at it, we need to tax other non-contributing members of society who place a burden on social services. I'm all for a tax on K-12 students, a tax on pre-schoolers, a tax on the disabled, senior citizens tax, and a tax on people who have crimes committed against them.
After all, with all the student financing available, they'll just pay it with loans right? So it's like we're actually taxing their future income!
Churches (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, we're still not taxing churches...
There are easier ways to tax students! (Score:3, Insightful)
In our university town there are already taxes in place which are aimed at students without directly naming them as the objects of the laws. Restaurant taxes, Alcohol taxes, Property taxes on rental units, Parking law enforcement strategically biased to certain areas, etc. The Mayor in question really isn't too bright if he's being so direct.
Re:dumb idea (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole story... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Student effect on economy (Score:1, Insightful)
In Boston most colleges and universities are exempt from property taxes.
That is because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in its infinite wisdom, has declared that these colleges and universities are charities, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has decided that charities don't pay property tax.
Don't like it? Change the law.
And frankly, without the large educational sector in Boston, the city would be a run-down industrial dinosaur like Pittsburgh or Detroit. There would be no thriving biotech or IT sector in Boston without all the educational spin-offs and a large pool of skilled labor.
Re:Students are always unappreciated. This is sick (Score:1, Insightful)
Pay TOO much...
cops bust us for anything...ILLEGAL.
US doens't want students (Score:3, Insightful)
In Norway for instance education is free. Yes FREE. We have excellent universities. For instance, Oslo University ranks at 101 at topuniversities.com. Not only though is it free to study, but the government pays you around 15000 NOK for every semester you complete (for full time students) (2 semesters a year). And not only that, but they give your a further 30000 NOK in loans (per semester) that are interest free until 1 year after you complete your studies.
The way the US treats it's people still puzzles me. Surely putting a strain on people who already have little money to live for just sounds like greed to me.
I will. (Score:5, Insightful)
(don't tell me how cutting taxes stimulates the economy and raises money and the laffer curve and supply side and fleeing jobs and all that... CA's economy has been "stimulated" in this manner for a generation, and it's still fucked.)
The problems that California have is the result of spending more that it earns. It's as simple as that. The economy was booming and tax revenues went through the roof because of it. Their tax policy, as far as income was concerned, wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, on April 15th in past years, the California legislature sees that huge pile of cash come in and they spent it thinking that California's boom will last forever. The Legislature, especially the liberal Democrats, have no clue about saving for the future or any clue that times do change and there are downturns in an economy.
Every time someone had some sort of project and regardless of its merits, they put money into it. Look now, when they want to cut spending, regardless of where, some special interest protests saying that they are important and the legislature needs to cut somewhere else.
If they had a responsible fiscal plan instead of spending every penny that came in they wouldn't be in this situation.
Laffer said that reducing taxes stimulates the economy as long as government reduces spending to match inflows. The California legislature was too stupid to realize that and they were too beholden to the special interests that always have their hands out for government money.
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Pittsburgh gave massive tax cuts to the "very rich" recently?
Re:Churches (Score:3, Insightful)
Short Sighted (Score:3, Insightful)
When Arizona State called asking for money I told them to tell Michael Crow I hope he's happy with his tuition hikes because he's never getting another dime from me. The way I see it, he already stole about $6000 dollars from me (they violated the state constitution to make those increases). I'm not going to voluntarily give more and my daughter will most likely not attend ASU. We're putting away money so she can go anywhere.
Students get a higher eduction, get better jobs, make more money, and pay more taxes which gets put back into the schools.
If we want to focus on "fair" then homeowners with children who don't go to public school need to be except from public school related taxes.
If the government wants their money "now" they better be prepared to lose money later.
Social Inequality in Action (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Politicians always come up with a bullshit reas (Score:3, Insightful)
We fought the British off (partly) over the issue of taxation without representation, but that isn't the problem here - as we have elected the people who are currently taxing us. (And in most cases continue to re-elect them.)
Here, you hit the nail on the head. Most people live in a reality distortion field where governments do nothing but raise taxes and 'waste' the money. Under the influence of this field, they believe the government can indefinitely raise the level of services provided without raising income while (seemingly) being free of the influences of inflation and rising prices that the rest of us are. There's always 'waste' to be cut and money to be saved without ever cutting services.
Any we've seen the results of this in corporate America... Jobs going offshore, ever shoddier products, ever lower quality.
Here, the same reality distortion field as above is at work - people have this odd belief that they can spend less while getting the same quality and without the people on the production lines having to work harder for less. At the same time, they insist the stocks in their 401(k), IRA, or other pension plan, go up in value indefinitely.
Seed corn (Score:3, Insightful)
"Eating the seed corn" is a folksy expression that means staving off hunger now by eating the seeds you need for next year's planting. I know it's a tired metaphor, but nothing in the English language comes close to describing how tragic it is when governments squeeze students. Education is what will bring us prosperity in the future. It should be the last think to be cut, after the military, police, fire department, road maintenance, research grants, foreign aide and pensions. When we cut education, we forgo a possibility of hardship today for the guarantee of irrelevance is decay tomorrow.
Educate your population, and you'd be amazed at how many other problems you solve along the way.
Re:Student effect on economy (Score:2, Insightful)
Raise taxes, print more green tickets, doesn't matter one bit. Money is not wealth, money is a symbolic tool to manage the distribution of wealth.
The economy is screwed because we're reaping the rewards of generations of negative population growth. Negative population growth creates great wealth when you first implement it... all those people who were raising families now have extra free time to produce "stuff". The relative proportion of the population that are working skyrockets.
It's a few generations later, when each population is smaller than the one before and yet expects to be sustained in the same fashion despite the fact that the proportion of the population working has fallen dramatically... that's when things go to hell. Oh, and that time is now.
Things will hopefully get better, some day, for some people. But they won't get better for us. They will get worse.
Re:dumb idea (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I disagree that this is bad policy. University students are (on average) priveleged, pay little rent/property tax, and use a lot of services. Waive the tax for scholarship students (or make the University pay it.) For poor students borrowing hundreds of $K to attend Carnegie Mellon - your bad decisions cannot drive policy.
Most educational institutions are tax supported, and by far and away it can be proven beyond doubt that a university in a town can make or break the town economically. University research, social networks (including fraternities, clubs, and even with graduating classes themselves), spin-off businesses, and even access to world-class talent to help work with municipal issues that come up from time to time.
My point is that those cities who think a university is a financial burden ought to consider what their city would be like without any institutions of higher learning. Discounting trolls who claim the city is simply going to devolve into ignorance (citizens can go elsewhere for college-level education and then return.... assuming of course that the kids going away to another town will return), the economic benefit to a city is so huge for having a university in the town that municipal (not state) funding of the university might even make some sense.
Few university students that I have met are so privileged as is implied here. Yes, there are some students who come from very wealthy families and flaunt their cash, but by far and away most students are struggling at or below almost any reasonable poverty guideline (most would qualify for Food Stamps and other social welfare programs), live in sub-standard high density housing, and tend to be engaged in activities that would not necessarily be a huge burden on a city in the first place (aka mostly using mass-transit and on a per-capita basis have a low carbon/energy footprint). Adding in volunteer work by students on the behalf of the community, and economic benefits in the form of internship, low-wage service jobs performed by students (aka staff in restaurants and other service-related businesses, and a ready pool of educated, intelligent employees willing to work for sub-par wages), it is obvious that most college students are effectively taxed anyway. Again, on a per-capita basis if you factor in off-campus housing, I would dare suggest that taxable income generated by a city in terms of property taxes collected for a similar group of people in the same economic/age group is very likely to be higher from college students than from non-college students. So from a pure fiscal standpoint it makes even less sense to impose an additional tax on students based on this rationale as well.
Ultimately a tax is a sign that the students aren't welcome in the community. This will ultimately be reflected in how the students will treat the community (rather harshly, I would suppose), and it would also be something that competing universities would gladly mention if they are trying to recruit students into their school (our town welcomes the students.... unlike Philadelphia who taxes them and wants them to leave).
Just the attitude alone is cause for concern, and would be room to recommend to a board of regents at any school in a city with this attitude to simply stop all capital improvements for its campus and reject any increase in the student population at that school as well. This should include state schools as well.
Re:wow (Score:1, Insightful)
Something is really wrong when you tax a student while just having given massive tax cuts to the very rich in the last 7 years.
I would suggest that even after those *massive* tax cuts to the *rich* that the *rich* end up paying far more than their fair share (i.e. more than the value of the services they receive). One of the problems in the US is that a relatively small percentage of the people (the so called rich) end up paying the vast majority of the taxes. This situation is unsustainable.
Russian Roulette (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone else starting to get the impression that politicians across the country (especially federal ones) LIKE playing Russian Roulette with their careers lately?
I say vote them out... if you don't represent ME and MY FELLOW constituents, then you have no business holding your office. To such politicians I say, "Consider yourself fired."
</venting>
Why does history have to keep repeating itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I will. (Score:2, Insightful)
The economy was booming and tax revenues went through the roof because of it.
OP here. See, I specifically requested that the conversation not degrade into these tired arguments, but sure enough, here they are. Now I gotta do a lot of typing. Sigh.
The economy was booming? Given your lack of specifics I'm going to assume you're talking about the last eight years. Guess what-- the economy was not "booming"-- the economy was in a bubble, especially in California. There was an illusion of a "boom", but in California it was built on private speculation, risk-taking, and fraud, which all ultimately collapsed.
Had Californians been taxed appropriately during the good years, they could have used that revenue to pay for things, in which case the crisis would be less severe. OR, they could have saved the money for a rainy day, in which case now they'd have had better means to get through this crisis. Had Californians had a sane property tax like a normal state rather than Prop 13 [wikipedia.org], things would not be so bad. But the Republicans have held the budget hostage for year after year because of the supermajority needed. The Special Interest you're talking about is the GOP party.
Laffer said...
Thanks for mentioning Laffer. We can agree the tax rate should be somewhere between 0% and 100%. In California's case it needed to be higher than it is now, esp. concerning property taxes. For Republicans, it ALWAYS needs to be lower than where it is now, ALWAYS. On principal, no matter what the circumstances. Always lower. Which is insane.
Re:Wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's funny that you mention this in the context of Pittsburgh -- Richard Florida wrote a book called 'The Rise of the Creative Class' about that theory -- that having college students gives way to an educated population and a class of creative professionals, from high tech to high finance, that builds prosperity. But Florida's research started when he noticed that he was surrounded by smart, capable young students at CMU, none of whom would be there a year or two after their graduation. His book (with methodology that's easy to critique) tries to show that it's more than just colleges that you need to retain college graduates. You can dispute Florida's findings -- that you need things like bike paths to keep college grads, but his inspiration, that college students leave Pittsburgh, is generally pretty true.
Finding out how to keep college students would go a long way towards solving Pittsburgh's problems -- and kicking them in the pants when they're poor students probably isn't a good way to do that. As a side note: poor college students can frequently get almost fully funded between grants and loans -- including a fair living stipend. If they can't get such financing for the $400 tax, then that's a real burden for the already less-advantaged college studnets trying to make a future for themselves.
Re:Students need to do a economic demonstration (Score:4, Insightful)
Within 10 days, at the prodding of local bars, clubs, and package stores that had lots the vast majority of their clientele, the Pittsburgh council dropped the student tax proposal.
If we can pull off a similar economic demonstration, like the parent alludes to, then I suspect we'll have trouble telling this Mayor what a moron he is.
Re:Short Sighted (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, I'll keep my kids out of school and pocket the money, then, when they hit 18, I'll kick them out and they'll end up in the prison system or something and then they'll be your problem for a whole lot more than if you'd just educated them.
Re:A reality check.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because the many socialist democracies of Europe are well known for taxing students.
Oh, wait, I got that backwards, they're well known for paying students while they're in school and charging them nothing for tuition.
Re:dumb idea (Score:3, Insightful)
What are they going to do next? Tax preschool?
They are going to tax any group that can't mount an organized defence against such a tax.