ANALYSIS: TRUE. Massachusetts Will Tax Uber to Subsidize Taxi Industry. That’s Absurd.

The state’s “MassDevelopment” agency—a crony-corporatist sinkhole of misappropriated funds, if ever there was one—will be responsible for figuring out how to spend the money to best help the taxi industry. One idea is to help taxis “adopt new technologies,” which probably means using an app to hail a cab. So Massachusetts is robbing Peter to pay Paul so that Paul can learn how to do the thing Peter already does.

Ride-sharing services have little choice but to accept the fee: indeed, they practically have to thank the government for going easy on them. The new law is apparently some sort of compromise—taxi lobbyists wanted Uber banned outright.

The bill was signed into law by Republican Governor Charlie Baker, who is apparently the kind of blue-state Republican that Democrats can count on to “do the right thing.”

But the question remains: Why are blue state governments so hostile to emerging industries patronized by (and provide jobs to) technologically savvy young people?