[numble]

Originally Posted by Car(e)-Free LA

Well, actually no. In this section, I'm not talking about taxation at all but instead responding to Quixote's point about construction costs.

The per capita figures under each of the subareas indicate how much would be spent in each subarea in my hypothetical countywide measure, divided by the total subarea population. It is intended to illustrate how in a countywide tax measure, you can raise money from the suburbs (total population 7,586,304, per capita transit expenditures $10,572) and spend it in Central LA and the Westside (total population 2,511,491, per capita transit expenditures $26,104), thus spending more in Central LA than you would if you implemented an additional sales tax in the City of LA alone.

Yes, I agree with you. You are showing per capita expenditures, not anything about the tax burden. As you see from his subsequent posts, electriciron thinks you are talking about the amount of tax each individual would feel.

Originally Posted by electricron

I am not re-defining what per capita means, you are.
From Webster,
1 : per unit of population : by or for each person
the highest income per capita of any state in the union
2 : equally to each individual

The root is Latin, Per capita is a Latin prepositional phrase: per (preposition, taking the accusative case, meaning "by means of") and capita (accusative plural of the noun caput, "head"). The phrase thus means "by heads" or "for each head", i.e., per individual/person.

Over 2000 years this phrase has meant one thing, now all of a sudden you wish to change its’ meaning. Oooooooooooooooooooooooh!

I was not commenting In favor or in opposition to the tax, just on the usage of per capita to reflect on what the amount of taxes every individual would feel. Why, because these taxes are not collected equally, so using a data point that assumes that is entirely wrong.

He is only showing how it would be expended—how the revenues would be spent, not how it would be collected. It is not the “amount of taxes every individual would feel” it is how much would be spent on that region from the tax revenues, in relation to the population. The amount of sales tax collected from a region can be readily estimated. You can choose to divide how you spend the tax collected to subregions on a disproportionate basis, and he uses “per capita” spending to reflect how he would allocate the revenue.