Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was in a cab traveling in California Monday night. And like exactly 99 percent of cabbies worldwide, Cuccinelli’s cabbie griped to his fare about all the nonsense he has to deal with as a hacker. The attorney general, who sporadically tweets from a personal account, decided to tell the world about it.

“My hispanic cab driver complained about his regs today,” he wrote. “I don't know what's happening to this country, the regs are getting worse than cuba.”

Did the Cuba reference come from Cuccinelli’s Republican rhetorical playbook? Not likely, according to Brian Gottstein, a spokesperson for Cuccinelli. The driver of the attorney general’s cab was “very likely” Cuban, since he spoke with knowledge of Cuban cabbing practices, says the spokesman. Since Cuccinelli is a limited government guy, by "worse," he naturally means "more."

Cuccinelli’s digital outburst would appear to fit into something of a trend. Pepco is already providing Third World-level service in D.C. The U.S. soccer team lost to Ghana at the World Cup. China has larger casinos than we do. Has the U.S. even fallen behind in the freedom we grant to our taxi drivers? Are our taxi regulations actually more onerous than those crafted by a bunch of commies in Havana?

Though Cuccinelli was clearly satisfied in sourcing such a contention to one possibly Cuban taxi driver, that’s not good enough for La Maquina de los Hechos.

As a lawyer, Cuccinelli doubtless appreciates that a scientific comparison of taxi-related regulatory rigor between Cuba and the United States of America is tough to pull off. Here in the land of Apple Pie and the Hummer, after all, the expectation is for a free market with relative minimal government interference. In Cuba, the state has a monopoly on legitimate economic activity.

Recently, Raul Castro -- the brother of the island’s long-time dictator, Fidel -- has been liberalizing Cuba’s economy. One of the first steps he took, back in January 2009, was to allow for private taxis to return to the nation’s streets. The result is a three-pronged taxi system

• There’s a thriving mercado negro for taxis. The island’s transportation system is pathetic, and Cubans without cars often have to hitchhike or pay those who own cars to get them to work or to other appointments.
• There’s a state-run taxi system that’s aimed at tourists. These are modern cabs under non-American brands. According to the travel guide Frommer’s, the taxi companies are combined under the auspices of Cuba’s Ministry of Transportation. These taxis are metered like cabs in the United States, with an initial charge of $1.10 and an additional cost of between 55 and 90 cents per kilometer.
• Lastly, there are the private taxis, which were legalized in January 2009. Drivers pay the state about $21.50 a month for the right to drive their taxis, and they are allowed to drive only other Cubans, not extranjeros. An AP article from September 2009 said Cuban officials were expected to announce a price ceiling at some point but that most drivers expected to charge about 50 cents. These drivers use their own cars, most of which are classic models from the U.S. imported before the embargo.

(There are also horse drawn taxis and motorcycle-powered taxis, but we’re sticking to automobiles for this one.)

In the United States, cabbies are regulated by localities, so there’s no single set of rules. So let’s just default to Cuccinelli’s home county of Fairfax as a point of comparison.

To drive a cab in Fairfax, you need a hacker’s license. (The regulations are all listed here.) The requirements are generally reasonable -- you need to be 21 years old and have a clean criminal and driving record. Applying costs $25, and there’s an issuance and yearly renewal fee of $40. If a driver doesn’t provide good service, the license can be revoked.

Rates, meanwhile, are set by the county’s Consumer Protection Commission based on a relatively complex formula, and rate changes have to be approved by the county’s Board of Supervisors. The number of taxis operating in the county is set by the supervisors annually. The process to obtain the certificate to operate a cab -- which is separate from a hacker’s license -- involves public hearings and applications. (Generally, taxi companies own the operator’s certificates.) Operators are required to have a certain level of insurance and can also have their certificates revoked for bad behavior. They have to keep numerous records, including their revenues, how many taxis are operating at a given point, and how many calls for service they’re receiving.

And while operating a cab, drivers must comply with many requirements. They can work a maximum of 13 hours a day, can pick up only a certain number of passengers, can charge only an additional 25 cents for each grocery bag and aren’t allowed to smoke or use cell phones while driving a passenger.

The cabs have to meet certain EPA fuel mileage standards or use state-approved alternate fuels. They’re also subject to regular inspections. Violations can result in criminal charges.

In all, the county’s taxicab regulations are well over 10,000 words.

Do Cuba’s cabbies face page after page of regulations? Well, no. But they are a rare departure from a Communist norm, and the state has completely shut down the industry once in the past. Baruch University Professor Ted Henken, who examined the black market for cabs in Cuba as part of his doctoral dissertation, explained in an e-mail:

In the US, the state sets the rules of the game with lobbying and pressure from stakeholders and constituents - but isn't the only employer, producer, or service provider. In fact, Cuba is only nominally "socialist." Instead, I like to think of it as a state monopoly or state capitalism.

This is a FAR different context than even the most regulated "socialistic" sectors of the US economy where workers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and corporations have far more legal rights and ability to lobby, pressure, and influence laws and regulations.

In a follow-up phone interview, he said that “the cabbies are completely at the mercy of the government, the police and inspectors and often get hit up for bribes.” Ultimately, he said, regardless of the toughness of American cabbie regulations, he'd rather ferry customers here than in Havana.

Regulations can have limited impact in Cuba, since most Cubans are masters at finding ways around the state’s rules and regulations. A legal privatized cab could easily act as a black market cab simply by turning off the meter, and it’s unlikely anyone would complain, Henken said. But if they’re caught, they could easily lose their car -- owning one requires government permission -- and could also be hit with a stiff fine.

So we have a pretty easy call here. Though Cuccinelli appears to have been thumbing some random thoughts on a social media site, he is right. The number of legal restrictions taxi drivers face in Cuba is slimmer than those faced by their hermanos in the United States.

A point of order here: It is not the job of the Maquina de los Hechos to point out that extensive cabbie regs in the U.S. were written to protect the consumer from proven instances of racial prejudice, fatal accidents, verbal and physical abuse, unwanted sexual advances, other categories of depraved hacker conduct, and charging a two-zone fare for a one-zone ride. Nor that the relative lack of regulatory rigor in Cuba may have more to do with that country’s lack of technological and economic development than with its governing ideology.

No, we here at the Maquina de los Hechos exist to judge the narrow, factual parameters of what our public officials say. And so we bequeath to Cuccinelli’s cabbie tweet an Honest Abe.