This is a common carbrain argument
“I already pay the gas tax”
The problem is that it’s false.
In a recent study, researchers Stefan Gössling, Jessica Kees, and Todd Litman calculated the social costs of driving. They found that the social cost is about 30-40% higher than what car owners are actually paying
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921003943?via=ihub
That cost is paid by non-drivers.
The cited article is correct but the summary of the meme is bad.
“I paid for the roads with taxes.” Is the text in the meme.
The text claims the meme says, “I paid for everything bad about cars with gas taxes.”
Thing is, you haven’t paid it with your taxes either. A lot of the costs haven not been paid yet at all, much of it is financed by debt, and also those who don’t use the road in the region pay for it nonetheless.
That’s splitting hairs - usually the debt is financed by defining a revenue stream to pay it
Umh, with public debt its not so simplistic, at least if you look at the bigger picture. Budget deficits (that also can have rising financing costs further down the road) can hide exploding and unsupported infrastructure costs for decades and then there are local budgets and bankruptcies of municipalities etc and last but not least there is also simply insufficient road infrastructure maintenance because not even debt can stem the weight anymore.
Also, if you don’t need those roads but have to pay a lot for them, that is certainly not splitting hairs either. Hard to imagine for some but even in the US there are places were substantial number of citizens don’t use cars very much or might not even own one (even though they could afford one). In better developed countries than the US that number can be even very substantial in urban environments.