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Since the Tax Revolt of the 1970s, cash-strapped state and local governments have increasingly relied on user fees to pay for public programs. Scholars attuned to city budgets have raised alarms about these fees: They undermine government’s redistributive role, impose regressive costs, and exclude low-income people from vital public services. This Article complicates these prevailing claims based on a first-of-its-kind study of user fee policies in a sample of American cities.

The Article reveals that policymakers regularly call on a progressive tool to reduce fees’ harms: fee waivers. As implemented, user fees are thus more redistributive than the standard understanding of them has allowed. But they are also more complex. The survey finds that fee waiver eligibility rules are patchwork, burdensome, and narrowly targeted. User fee rules form a multifaceted tapestry of exclusion and protection, deprivation and generosity.

The Article also sounds a clarion call: User fees’ protective features are not guaranteed. Without adequate defense, fee waivers risk succumbing to external attack from those who would outlaw them. Without adequate scrutiny, they risk falling victim to their own internal design flaws. The Article addresses these risks by offering reform principles drawn from model programs surveyed across the country. Mayors, city councils, school boards, and state legislatures can use this Article as a playbook to inform the design of user fees that raise revenue while protecting vulnerable American households.