Taxis and Taxes

Fifteen members of the City Council — including Diana Reyna, Bill de Blasio, John Liu, Gale Brewer, and Leroy Comrie — came out yesterday in support of imposing a fuel surcharge on New York City taxi passengers to preserve the earning power of the city's taxi drivers in the face of high gasoline prices. What a fine way to run an economy. Imagine if the government could just legislate higher earnings for every individual affected by higher energy costs, and higher revenues for every business affected. The City Council might also declare higher salaries for all New Yorkers who own gasoline-powered cars, and higher revenues at businesses who pay for their heating oil.

We don't have that kind of government command-and-control economy in New York, except for in the rent-controlled and rent-stabilized housing sector, and the taxi sector. Leave it to the Council members to decide that taxi drivers are the one subclass of the New York City population that should be insulated from higher gas prices, and that taxi riders should be the one to provide them the insulation.

Were the taxi industry to be deregulated and allowed to set its own prices, like the rest of the industries in town, the Council members might stop being able to milk it for campaign contributions. So we can see why the Council members have an interest in the status quo. The question is at what point will the drivers and taxi owners and riders see an interest in getting the City government out of the picture so that the prices can be set by the market rather than by a bunch of politicians or their appointees. Then taxi drivers could charge what they want and New Yorkers could decide for themselves whether to pay, walk, or ride the subway.