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How do you travel and commute? By car? If so, millions of Germans who don't own a care are funding your means of transport.



I will keep that in mind next time I am staring at the rear of a diesel bus while stuck in traffic.


I know you're being facetious, but yes. Public transport is cheaper per person per kilometer than cars. Gasoline and motor vehicle taxes are very low in comparison to the cost of road maintenance and environmental and societal effects of individual transport, so you're indeed profiting off of tax money.


To which I’m also contributing by driving myself. Those roads aren’t built for my pleasure of driving to the office. They also serve crucial role in supply chains.

In fact, those buses are on exactly on those same roads. The existence of those roads facilities convenient public transportation.


These 2.5 billion euros is almost nothing for a country the size of Germany. I mean, it’s 0.1% of the total budget (€1762.4 billion last year). It’s nothing. Are you really getting all huffy & puffy about paying for a scheme that provides transportation to poorer people and helps the environment? And are you the same about all other tiny expenses, or is it just this one in particular.


€2.5B here, €2.5B there; pretty soon you’re talking about billions of Euros.

I think this is a good program, but anything that costs 1/1000th of a large country’s budget is a large expense to my mind, not “nothing”.


No, I just said that I paid twice as much as last year for the heating oil and my tax obligations are increasing and this doesn’t benefit everyone. It turned into this discussion.




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