As I watched the coverage of the rescue and recovery efforts in China following the earthquakes, I added to my list of the benefits of community several items: building standards and building inspectors, as well as elevator inspectors. None of these things come cheap, and they are worth every penny in a society which includes multi-story buildings, or buildings which might be subject to hurricanes or tornadoes.
The buyer of a building ought to have some assurance that it meets at least the standards of the era in which it was built, both in terms of materials and construction methods. The elevator passenger wants some assurance that someone besides the building's owner is paying attention to the maintenance of the elevators.
But how should we pay for such things?
It seems to me that some -- perhaps all -- of this should be funded by user fees of various kinds. Not on elevator passengers, but on buildinglords and on builders of buildings.
But I think a case might also be made for funding such things from taxes on land value.
I'd certainly not want to place a tax on wages to fund such things. That seems kind of obvious, when one stops to think about it. I'd also not want to fund such inspections with a tax on sales. That seems obvious too.
As a rule, we should prefer direct taxation to indirect taxation as a way to fund our common spending.
And I certainly wouldn't want to see the "starve government" crowd find a way to do away with building standards, building inspections, and elevator inspections. We ought to be able to count on certain standards, and devote our brainspace to other things than worrying about whether the buildings we enter are safe and to code.
So should our firefighters. That's another post.
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