It's a really good idea. In the US, we already pay enough in taxes that we should have free healthcare for every man, woman, and child. We should also have free public transportation, and free education through college. There are so many countries in Europe that are doing this successfully. It's pathetic that we aren't. With all the tax dollars that get wasted, we could easily afford all those things and more.

Germany has long been one of the most advanced nations in providing essential services through government. We could lean a lot from them.

Years ago, Portland, Oregon had a free zone for downtown on the light rail and buses. Made it very handy to get around.

The Russian idea of 30 squats for a free ticket appeals to me.

If you consider the cost associated with dealing with traffic in our cities, road expansion, traffic patrol, tow away enforcement, etc. I wonder if the cost savings to the cities might be equally as valuable as the reduced carbon footprint.

I think we are at, or approaching, a social paradigm shift. Capitalism has run it's course and too many people have learned how to "game the system" and the system has caused too many of us to be focused on the collection of bucks as a measurement of what it means to be successful OR a good human being. This wasn't a bad measure when we did not have automation like we do today. Put another way, when things HAD to be done by people, then income was a measure of your ability to "do." Today, that is shifting, at a rapidly increasing pace. Shifting, specifically, to automation. We now check ourselves out of the store. We order online (thus cutting out whole hordes of jobs). Just to scratch the surface and name a couple of ways in which labor is being automated.

Because of that, we are entering an era in which labor is more and more unnecessary and this means that to survive you have fewer and fewer opportunities to make the money necessary for the basics. Such as getting transportation to get food.

Juxtapose this with yet other efficiencies we have built up: we produce far more food (currently, we are outpacing this ability but RIGHT NOW this is the case, last I read) than we need but people still go hungry and some of that (not all mind) is due to the drive for profits (and farmers do deserve compensation). It is theoretically possible to generate enough energy for the US using a solar farm that only takes up a few hundred square miles (and that too will get more efficient)... granted, it still needs to be distributed. Both the power, and the production (no sense in parking the ONE place that we make power in the middle of the states, we have enough land in enough places AND distributing the production means that we have redundancy).

Bah, I stray from the crux of my statement: we are approaching a time where the quest for the dollar makes less and less sense and the system is gamed so that questing for the dollar to simply survive is getting harder and harder. Imagine a world in which you don't actually have to work for food, water, electricity, and education, just the basics.

Sneaky of me to add that last: imagine people studying at major universities and pursuing what they WANT to study rather than the coursework that is considered the most profitable (currently). Imagine how knowledge could/would grow in leaps and bounds when you have a populace that chases after those things they want to because all of them are equally desirable.

Oh, there is room in this dream for chasing after the all mighty Buck in that "the basics" might not include certain luxury items. If you want them then you have to find a way of getting to them (no, I don't know yet how to do that, this is a work in progress, watch this space).

Long and short is that there is no good reason for people to be impoverished when we have the resources and means to fulfill everyone's needs. The thing is that whenever we raise such an argument, people hear "socialism" or "communism" and we have an emotional, knee jerk, reaction against it when the reality is that such a system deserves to at least be pondered.

Caveat: Capitalism isn't broken, per se. It was broken by inroads into government controls that limited, or eliminated in some cases, competition. I think that in a 'ungamed' market, Capitalism can work. But, as with Communism, etc, it fails due to one simple, pervasive problem: humanity is greedy. Thus, in communism some realize that someone needs to lead and why shouldn't the leaders get first pick of what everyone needs? Same with capitalism, it just makes sense to squash competition... but when you get so good at it you have corrupted the whole system, the system breaks down.

Example: Comcast, DirectTV, etc, if they were working in competition, service quality would go up, and cost would go down. However, there is increasing evidence that the cable providers are working together by carving up areas. Each owns an area, while the others maintains a minimal, non-competitive, presence in that area. This way competition is minimized and profits are maximized. Yeah, I know, sounds sort of like a conspiracy theory, but if you think about it from the standpoint of a minimal number of entities who really want to maximize profit, and reduce cost, it makes sense. Ie: if you think like a predator, would a predator naturally live in the same territory of another predator that eats the same food, or would said predator move to an area where they have complete control over the food source? Since we don't find competitive predators living side by side, I think the evidence argues for the concept that predators figure out where they can live in control of their hunting grounds. Same for companies. They will naturally work out a way to own their territory to minimize the work necessary to make a profit... which is in direct opposition to the precepts of how Capitalism is a functional, and good, system.

Edit: I realized that my thinking was coming across a little spastic... I am not out to make a true thesis so I don't mind a little chaos, but decided to revisit this and clean up a little of the thinking.

Now: when will I EVER make a short post?

I had not heard of this! I'm intrigued and would like to know more both of how they fund it and what it will change.

I'd love to live someplace with reliable enough public transport that I don't need a car... Notnto mention free...

Back in the 1960-70s in Rochester, NY, all bus travel within the Inner Loop (Downtown area) was free. Local businesses paid for it to encourage shopping.

Great concept. Roadways and walkways are generally free. If taxpayers agree to fund public transportation rather than collecting user fees then do it. The public benefit from reduce exhaust gas pollution may be worth it.

sounds great,

Germany has a progressive tax and the steer amt (IRS) was ruthless. Taxes should be used to support the community. It is the socialism that fat cat conservatives deplore.

My commute transit is about $0.35/day -- Bikeshare. Close enough to free!

That's awesome!..

Sounds like socialism to me. It won’t work as socialism has never worked well.

If they can swing it, more power to them.

As long as is not going to affect the country in any way ,why not and remember taxes are needed to build up a nation

Right now I'm a bus mechanic but before that I drove city bus up here in the Twin Cities. Not having to collect fares would have made the job unimaginably better. It would make it easier for folks to get to and keep jobs also.

I think if they do it, that would be enough to get me to visit Germany.

I wish they would do that here in the U.S.

Any time you offer a service for free, a small number of people will abuse it to the detriment of everyone else. As long as that is accounted for, great idea.

Of course it would come from Europe.

It's a shifting of the cost, not an elimination of it, just like all government funded programs. That means that people who don't use public transit are going to be taxed more for something they may never use. I think it's a wonderful sentiment, just a dishonest one.

First off I believe this is a great idea, but I'm not from there. When I say that I don't mean that I don't care, it's because I don't know about everything there. Like how the locals feel about this or the possibility raises of taxes. I'm not from there nor have I looked into this so all I can hope for is that this really does help people, their country and the world.

Sounds like a good idea if done right