“Obama floats plan to tax cars by the mile”:
News of the draft follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.
Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.
The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues.
Obama’s proposal seems to follow up on that idea in section 2218 of the draft bill. That section would create, within the Federal Highway Administration, a Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office. It would be tasked with creating a “study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems.”
The administration seems to be aware of the need to prepare the public for what would likely be a controversial change to the way highway funds are collected. For example, the office is called on to serve a public relations function, as the draft says it should “increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches.”
The draft bill says the “study framework” for the project and a public awareness communications plan should be established within two years of creating the office, and that field tests should begin within four years.
The office would be required to consider four factors in field trials: the capability of states to enforce payment, the reliability of technology, administrative costs, and “user acceptance.” The draft does not specify where field trials should begin.
The new office would be funded a total of $200 million through FY 2017 for the project.
Of course, this will remain in “draft form” until after Obama’s 2012 re-election. At which point it — like “health care reform” — will be shoved down our throats and further stifle the economy.
Not to mention, the idea of a tax on our ability to travel freely and unmonitored by the government — who has no right to know how much or how far or why or where we drive, as a matter of Constitutional mandate — is about as anathema to our founding principles as anything one can imagine.
Naturally, any new FHA dictates would be littered with waivers: likely, truckers, etc., would be exempted (or else pay a reduced rate). And we’ll be told that such new measures are necessary should we wish to fix a “crumbling infrastructure” of roads and bridges. Despite having been able to do so up until now without such new taxes.
Just another attempt to “nudge” us toward European-style mass transit, limiting our freedoms and drawing us all into big city centers where we can be “managed.”
The government doesn’t need to raise more revenues. It needs to spend less. Or else soon, through a variety of such measures and increases in tax rates, the federal Leviathan will be swallowing up more than half of our earnings, if not more.
I don’t need half my life run by the government. Neither should anyone else of sound mind and body.
Screw dumping Tea into a harbor. This time I say we all drive to the Capitol and park our cars on the Beltway. Once these lawmakers realize that they can’t get to happy hour, this kind of bullshit will be scuttled without further discussion.
(h/t Dave O’C)
And you’re not even considering enforcement. Crap like this has to be enforced, people will (rightly) ignore it otherwise. So you’ve got yet another bureaucracy in the pipe, no doubt with intrusive investigatory and arrest powers – the cops unions should be highly amused.
The system we have now, where the more gas you use the more taxes you pay, seems to work fine. Generally, fuel use correlates to vehicle size, and vehicle size correlates to the amount of wear on the roads.
What the system we have now doesn’t do properly is control our behavior. Hence, they propose something that will.
I like the way the plan is to create an office right away. That’s the first thing, pronto. And, once you have a staff … shit, well, then you have to start collecting money.
[spit]
Just set the damn fuel tax at whatever level is necessary to maintain the infrastructure. When my property value dropped, my local mill rate went up to compensate, so that I continued to send bloated checks to the city, county, and school district. If fuel consumption drops in the same way, why can’t the “mill rate” on fuel do the same thing?
Electric cars are a new wrinkle, I’ll grant. I think an annual road use fee in lieu of fuel taxes would be a great option, if only because I like the idea of taking back the absurd up-front subsidies given to buyers in the first place.
But snooping devices installed by the State? No effin’ way.
(I’d love to do a rate study on metro highways. I figure that commuter volume is the prime contributor to the number of lane-miles needed, while heavy truck traffic is the prime contributor to the cost per lane-mile. Sorting out the interplay between the cost drivers would be my kind of fun.)
I put 45,000 miles on my Lexus last year, and on the same pace this year. Fuck them.
Hell, even the effin’ ACLU would howl about that one.
In addition to the excellent points JeffG makes, consider who this new tax is really aimed at:
knucle-dragging wingnuts living in flyover country who won’t vote in their economic interests, endorse high-speed rail boondoggles, or move to urban areas like any “right-minded” person would.
It’s a fact that folks that live in the country, and even the exurbs, have to drive more miles due to the geographic separation of the places they need to go.
This tax will impact flyover country wingnuts disproportionately; and be used as a source of revenue to fund the urban areas via redistribution…
Thanks to the Law of Unintended Consequences, I’m confident that if this passes something similar to the following will occur:
People who go off-roading will complain because they are subsidizing people who drive on roads, or at the very least are unfairly taxed because the system counts all mileage, not just road mileage.
The law will be amended to exclude off-road vehicles.
Sales of off-road vehicles increase – this means more SUVS. HUMMER brand is revitalized.
I think that would be funny, in an irony-irony sort of way.
Amen, Senor Reed.
But then, scooter, the Department of Intrusive Vehicular Behavior Monitoring will become aware of that loophole. Therefore they will have to assign each off-road vehicle owner a “minder” to ride along everywhere you go and note when you get on the road to tax accordingly.
But hey, think how many jobs will be created by the DIVBEM Minder Program! Unemployment solved! President-For-Life Obama’s legacy even further validated!
I can’t wait to see the government try to implement some sort of vehicle tracking device so government can make sure I’m paying the proper taxes.
I’d have my daily mileage readout capped at, say, 10 miles or my car would somehow show up parked in my garage a lot.
Combination of the two?
“increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches.”
Or, in simpler terms;
“We need to bug your car so we take more of your money.”
Electoral tar and feathers anyone?
LTC, I’m well past Electoral tar and feathers.
I thinks its time we go with the real thing.
It’s a fact that folks that live in the country, and even the exurbs, have to drive more miles due to the geographic separation of the places they need to go.
My parents retired to the country, and in recent years they’ve started going everywhere in Mom’s little Hyundai, leaving Dad’s truck in the driveway. They say it’s because they can’t afford all the gas that the truck burns through, but I know it’s really because they’re unpatriotic and they’re trying to deny Uncle Sam the compensation he’s due.
Just wait ’til the “Ashcroft wants to snoop my book-borrowing records” people catch wind of this one.
This bullshit presupposes I’m actually going to ALLOW some asshole to monitor how many miles I drive.
We won’t even go into the part where I’m taxed each time i fill my gas tank, by the state, feds, and in some cases counties.
First attempt at that will result in headlines at 6, details at 11.
Not even going to entertain any discussion.
penguins ponderings:
Does “right-minded” rhyme with “reasonable?”
I think the flightless Antarctic one is on to something in #15. We’ll really hear the protests then, won’t we!
Will you still be able to fill up cans to run your mower and things with?
Might take a little longer to gas up a car that way, but you could.
“…likely, truckers, etc., would be exempted (or else pay a reduced rate).”
For a while. But not for very long. Baby Government needs a new pair of everything.