#121: An Uber Bailout For Taxis

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2016

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s no secret that ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft have disrupted the taxi industry. While many cities have embraced the fierce competition, others have simply banned ride-sharing outright. But Massachusetts is taking a novel approach — forcing companies like Uber to subsidize their taxi competitors. A new 20 cent tax on ridesharing trips includes 5 cents that goes directly to the taxi industry. If it sounds unfair, then why are both the companies and Governor Baker (a Republican) supporting it? Should Uber subsidize taxis in other cities as well? What are the downsides? The Manhattan Institute’s Jared Meyer joins the show to discuss. For more, read his article in Forbes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Schwarzenbber. On today's show, in Massachusetts, a new 20% tax on Uber and Lyft will subsidize the taxi industry.
0:16.1	And in the interest of coming up with new and exciting ways to talk about Uber on this show, here's
0:21.6	another one. So joining me is our resident Uber commentator, Jared Meyer, research fellow at the
0:26.5	Manhattan Institute and author of Uber Positive, Why Americans Love the Sharing Economy. Jared,
0:30.6	welcome back. It's been so long since we talked about a new Uber story.
0:35.1	Well, that's true. I mean, we keep finding new things to talk about,
0:38.7	but with how much this industry is changing and how much policymakers continue to try to tax,
0:43.4	regulate it, or even subsidize it, it looks like we're not going to run out of things anytime soon.
0:47.6	I mean, if we ever did actually have resolution to many of these regulatory battles,
0:51.6	would you basically be out of a job? Is that fair to say? Uh-huh. I'd be an
0:55.2	Uber driver then. So while you do write articles, you know, indicating your support for various
1:00.5	policies or certain things like that, actually you just want more conflict, right? Well, it's like,
1:06.6	you know, if they ended up curing breast cancer, the breast cancer charity would be out of business.
1:11.1	Like, what do they do? They'd just be like, I guess we go home now. That's kind of like what
1:14.3	would happen if I ever got my way on Uber. I guess my work here's done. That's a nice company
1:20.5	you're putting yourself in there. It's clearly the importance of the work is equal. But anyway,
1:25.7	so Jared, we've talked about basically everything.
1:28.5	I mean, the labor issue is the biggest one. We've talked about certain models that are being
1:33.9	floated around in terms of employee benefits. And we talked about the lawsuits that resulted in
1:39.7	things like drivers councils and settlements to drivers and but where lawyers made all the money. But really,
1:45.3	we've had a couple of new recent things. And that's why you've been on the show. Our last episode
1:49.0	we talked about subsidizing Uber, how some cities who have bad public transit or not enough
	...

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