Chicago Alderman's Plan On City Budget Crisis: Let's Just Charge Uber And Lyft More To Fix It

from the that's-not-a-plan dept

Big city budgets are hellaciously complicated affairs. That much is obvious, but the actual level of management of a budget likely goes far beyond what the average member of the public realizes. Even with that stipulated, the city of Chicago's budget is an absolute mess. Budget shortfalls abound for any number of reasons, ranging from bloated payrolls, to pet projects that have missed the mark on cost projections, to a shortage of income related to police and parking activity from our infamous redlight cameras and our equally infamous privatization of parking meters. Anyone looking to solve this budget crisis is likely to begin pulling their hair out immediately, wondering where to even begin.

Except for Alderman Anthony Beale, longtime stooge for the taxi industry, who has suggested an easy fix: just go crazy in taxing the hell out of innovative ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft.

Beale, who chairs the City Council Transportation Committee, said he hopes Emanuel will revisit the idea of higher fees and tougher regulations on the burgeoning ride share industry as part of budget talks for 2018. He said the move would help even the playing field for cab drivers finding it increasingly difficult to compete. Beale wanted a per-ride charge of $1 on ride share companies as part of Emanuel’s 2016 budget. Instead, Emanuel raised the charge from 30 cents to 52 cents per ride.

“We should have went for the dollar and we negotiated down to the 50-cent (fee),” Beale said Wednesday. “Now here we are again, going for the dollar. And so, I think we could have been much further along if we had just stuck to our guns and gone for the dollar a couple years ago.”

Chicago has been a battleground of sorts in this fight between taxis and ride-sharing services. The per-ride fee instituted in 2016 came on the heels of a city-wide protest by taxis in 2015, where cabs refused to pick up fares in the downtown area and instead just honked their horns a bunch while those of us that work down here tried to actually do our jobs. The protest was designed not so much to rally public support to their side, as the public's voting with their wallets is what got us here in the first place. Rather, it was designed simply to be a pain in the city's ass enough for city officials to write in higher per-ride fees into its licensing legal framework.

And to that extent, it worked. The fee went up by a third or so. For Beale to lament the lack of a 300% increase in fees and, more fallaciously, to frame the desire for that increase as a budget solution when it is nothing of the sort, is fairly laughable. The real reason for Beale's angst is that he is the errand boy of Chicago's taxi companies, plain and simple. This is pure entrenched player protectionism and regulatory capture in reverse, with taxi companies looking to regulate more innovative and useful companies to death, or at least into some sort of insane fairness coma.

That isn't how government is supposed to be done, but it sure is the Chicago way.

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Filed Under: anthony beale, budget, chicago, ride sharing
Companies: lyft, uber


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 2:06pm

    Chicago Alderman's Plan On City Budget Crisis: Let's Just Charge Uber And Lyft More To Fix It

    Which really means lets turn them into tax collectors, collecting tax from the people who use their services. Any company that wishes to remain in business simply passes such taxes onto their customers, with a little extra to cover their book keeping expenses, plus a little more for profit.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 2:19pm

    Local government backed monopolies

    Taxi companies are local government backed monopolies and they are suffering from innovation. They can't keep raising their rates year over year if people have a viable alternative. Instead of innovating themselves, they are trying to pass more onerous laws to make their competition suffer. This will never lead to traditional taxis having a comeback. It will only quicken the change to fully automated cars with no drivers involved in any part of the ride. They are killing off the golden goose to spite their own face.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 2:19pm

    Uber's sole advantage is subsidized by "venture capitalists",

    hoping to establish a monopoly. The "free money" created out of thin air by Federal Reserve printing a trillion per year, dodging laws and responsibility, and lying that employees are "contractors" are its "business model".

    Undercutting prices isn't a new idea, kids, and it used to prosecuted as unfair competition. It's solely the current bought and paid for crony capitalism that allows Uber to exist at all.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 2:20pm

    Re: Uber's sole advantage is subsidized by "venture capitalists",

    "Uber lost $2.8 billion last year - Apr. 14, 2017 - CNN Money"

    http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/14/technology/uber-financials/

    I guess Geigner believes that enough time has passed that Uber's corporate culture of sexual harassment, and Kalanick's explosive anger when a driver complained have been forgotten.

    The worst that this tax could do is partly balance Uber's crime of unfair competition.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 3:07pm

    Normal Leftish Government

    "That isn't how government is supposed to be done, but it sure is the Chicago way."


    It's also the California way, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, Washington DC and Venezuela way. Destructive, outrageous tax & spend government occurs wherever leftists are in charge.

    Chicago is one of the worst cases in America but it's long been in a fiscal death spiral after 86 years of Democratic Control.


    US Congressmen think just like Chicago Alderman, but Feds can print all the money they want. Chicago has hiked every tax and fee it can think of --- but it's never enough.
    The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money to spend.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 3:08pm

    Re: Re: Uber's sole advantage is subsidized by "venture capitalists",

    The person you blames has resigned, but you want to continue to punish the company.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 3:46pm

    Re: Normal Leftish Government

    "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money to spend."

    The trouble with your analogy is that is just simply is not applicable. The political system in place in the city of Chicago is not socialism - but you knew that.

    Now, why does a big city need all that money? Did you mention all those bribes that the captains of industry need because they just might move their business out of the city .... or that pet project some big wig wants ... or any of those other non-socialism related expenditures - yeah, didn't think so

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2017 @ 4:08pm

    Its better then the New York Way. Where a group of Italian-Americans would be busting Uber/Lyft drivers kneecaps until they paid money for the Barber

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 16 Oct 2017 @ 7:18pm

    cabs refused to pick up fares in the downtown area and instead just honked their horns a bunch

    So, like, it wouldn't be a problem if someone "accidentally" ran over the cabs, right?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Docrailgun, 16 Oct 2017 @ 10:56pm

    Innovative ride-sharing?

    No, no, no. Neither Lyft nor Uber are ride-sharing companies. They're unregulated taxi companies with no protections for their employees at all.

    The only "innovation" they've come up with is a new way for rich people to make more money on the backs of the workers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Coyne Tibbets (profile), 17 Oct 2017 @ 7:05am

    The vice tax

    Looks like they finally found a vice other than tobacco and alcohol to tax.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Wendy Cockcroft, 17 Oct 2017 @ 7:14am

    Re: Re: Normal Leftish Government

    Boogeyman politics: the go-to for ignorant people.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Wendy Cockcroft, 17 Oct 2017 @ 7:17am

    Re: Re: Re: Normal Leftish Government

    Wendy's Law: Invoking the word "Socialism" to shut down discussion is easier than holding a discussion. Partisans depend on this to bolster their arguments.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    jcwconsult (profile), 17 Oct 2017 @ 8:01am

    Taxing sources of economic growth

    This is just another insane proposal to tax the commuters and visitors that come to Chicago bringing needed economic activity to make Chicago successful. Make it too onerous to come to Chicago to work or shop and those people will simply take their employment and shopping to other places that aren't trying to rob their wallets so viciously.

    James C. Walker, National Motorists Association

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Oct 2017 @ 11:31am

    Re: Innovative ride-sharing?

    I love how all these people come out of the woodwork. No spoken until the magical "U"-word comes out.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Oct 2017 @ 1:11pm

    I'm no fan of Chicago politicians, but I'm not about to shed a tear for Uber or Lyft either.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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