Payroll Tax for Congestion

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is faced with performing a delicate balancing act--supplying the much-needed roads and other infrastructure without alienating their political cash machine, the developers.

It came up with a plan to pay for the roads and other improvements, up-front, before more houses were built (or at least at the same time). The board and the development community would have you believe that the developers are reaching into their wallets and paying big bucks to provide these “public benefits.”

The buyers of these new homes will not only pay their own mortgages and property taxes, they can actually look forward to paying for the roads that all of us are desperate for. Is it fair or equitable to have these new home buyers shoulder the burden of paying for roads and infrastructure that the county needs now?

These facilities would be needed even without new construction. The politicians and economists tell us that most of the county’s growth in population has been internal. But there has been growth in the job market within the county. These new workers come from somewhere; it isn’t Orange County.

If we pass a special sales tax to pay for roads these workers will buy their goods elsewhere. If we create an Orange County gas tax these workers will buy their gas at home. There is a solution: Have the people creating the need for additional roads pay for them. Business hires workers from Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego counties. These workers certainly contribute to a great deal of our traffic congestion.

We could charge business a “payroll head tax,” granting credits for car pools, ride sharing bus ridership, and for workers that lived within a certain radius with head tax, roads could be built now, without trading developers’ dollars for entitlements, without trading dollars for votes. Traffic, politics and business in Orange County would be better off.

HOWARD O. KIEFFER

Trabuco Canyon