So Much For Thompson's Driver's License Plan

The budget deficit for the MTA's budget is steadily growing larger, but the plan to help solve the flailing in the air. The MTA proposed to cut service and increase the fare, which sucked. The Ravitch Commission offered to put tolls on the bridges and raise taxes from businesses in the area. Then Comptroller and official Mayoral candidate William Thompson came up with a plan to increase driver's license fees. The only problem though, is that Thompson and his ally in the Assembly, Micah Kellner, didn't do their math correctly for the public.

From Second Avenue Sagas:

Right now, those of us with New York State drivers licenses pay, more or less, around $50 once every eight years to renew our licenses. It was my understanding that this alternate plan would simply raise this rate to $100 every eight years. The way I figured it, this new fee would generate an additional $42 million a year and not the promise $300 million Kellner and Thompson had noted.

The catch, you see, is that Kellner and Thompson would charge New Yorkers that $50 fee every year. Instead of paying $50 for eight years, we would instead be paying $400 extra over that eight-year period to enjoy the privileges and benefits of having a drivers license no matter how little or how much we drive.

And of course that means that everyone gets charged (those with licenses) no matter how much you drive and whether you use the bridges or not. So at least the tolls are part of a usage program where Thompson wants it across the board. It isn't exactly a fair proposal and the way it was presented hinted that it doubled the fee, not 8x. As SAS says, this proposal is bogus, I agree.