Public Financing.
—Every civic government has its methods for the collection of revenue to pay its necessary expenses. One of the easiest things theoretically to do, then, is to collect by a tax on the property of the district—state, county, township—sufficient money to meet expenses, including the building and maintenance of roads, from the property holders in proportion to their wealth and turn it over to the proper officers for expenditure. When roads were yet simple things, before they had become elaborate and complicated structures, that might have been done. Practically, however, even then the working of the roads was a farce; men sat around, told stories, retailed the neighborhood gossip and smoked their pipes or whittled sticks, while the horses hitched to the scraper or plow stood limp with one hip lower than the other, eyes half shut lazily swishing at the flies with their long tails. Soon the necessary hours were passed, their poll or road tax had been “worked out.” The roadway was left in an almost impassable condition to be gradually worn smooth during the intervening six months until it came time again to work the roads. To most of those old timers the working of the road was a necessary evil and done only because the law required it. When occasionally a road supervisor insisted on a full day’s work for a day’s credit he was a skinflint and at the next election lost his job.
The tremendous amount of money necessary to construct present types of roads must, in the long run, be obtained from the citizens through some medium of taxation. A tax is a compulsory contribution levied upon persons, property, business, occupations, privileges, or enjoyment of the people for the support of government or governmental functions. When levied upon persons it is usually called a poll or head tax; when upon property, a property tax; when upon business it may be a capital tax, sales tax or an income tax; when upon occupations, an occupation tax; when upon privileges, a license; and when upon enjoyment, a pleasure tax. A good many of them may be lumped together under the name of revenue taxes. Some are collected personally by a specified officer of the government, while others are collected indirectly by the sale of stamps which are attached to the article or transaction taxed.
Taxes may also be classified as direct, indirect and special, all of which are of great importance to the highway.