Posted on 02/15/2005 10:18:28 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder
States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile CORVALLIS, Ore., Feb. 14, 2005
(CBS) College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment.
"I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.
So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW.
And what kind of mileage does he get?
"The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just.
And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.
Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."
Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.
Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
"So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let's say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles," says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.
The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways.
"We're getting a lot of interest from other states," says Jim Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. "They're watching what we're doing.
"Transportation officials across the country are concerned about what's going to happen with the gas tax revenues."
Privacy advocates say it's more like big brother riding on your bumper, not to mention a disincentive to buy fuel-efficient cars.
"It's not fair for people like me who have to commute, and we don't have any choice but take the freeways," says Just. "We shouldn't have to be taxed."
But tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road.
Who are you kidding?
I forgot to mention that in that scenario, the attendant wouldn't even have to override the system. If the pump detects and can converse with the GPS, it charges based on the mileage. If not, the huge per gallon tax goes into effect (stick it to the out-of-staters, who have no choice, dodge a couple political pitfalls, and discourage people from disabling their GPS's). Nifty neato, huh?
That may or may not be Constitutional. Taxing in-state and out-of-state people at different rates has always been a Constitutional hot-spot.
I drive about 60,000 miles each year selling on the road. OUCH!
Not sure.
I thought I heard that it was part of the computer system. IE: Your vehicle would keep the information everytime it was fueled.
Listen ... I don't think the public, as gullible as they are, will allow this. Some states? Perhaps, but with only (only?!) 30% of the population complete lunatics, fearing global warming, vanishing horny toads and whatever, I don't see this going anywhere soon.
Hell, the Dimocrats are openly trying to screw the young people by poisoning them (and seinors not even effected by it) against the S/S fix, so I don't see them (young people) supporting this kind of money grab.
Don't forget two things:
1. Out of state drivers, who may not have the GPS device, will need to be taxed somehow.
2. In my hypothetical, the outrageous per gallon tax would be considered the default, with the GPS option voluntary (the state could even say that visitors may install and use the GPS based system) so there would be no difference between natives and visitors, in theory. De facto, any difference would be because the viability of the GPS factors out differently for visitors.
Darn you! And to think I came this close to putting "and I don't mean my wallet", but thought it would ruin the humor!
"...if there were no big rigs and no cars with studded tires..."
Big rigs do more groving damage to expressways than do studded tires on cars - I have seen the evidence after studded tires were banned and roads were repaired.
"...ladder rated for 250lbs...a 350lb guy try and use it and it breaks instantly."
Everything that is manufactured and has a load limit or a stress limit has a safety factor built into it. In checking ANSI standards for portable ladders it looks like the required safety factor is 4:1, so that 250lb ladder would still support a 500 lb person and still be "safe" at an approx 2:1 safety factor. Note that this is not advised or acceptable practice.
No, it's going to be increased. I heard some "analyst" on the radio today say we're "lagging" "terribly" behind Europe, where the tax is several dollars per gallon! We've got to catch up! A per-mile tax won't stop them from keeping - and raising - the per-gallon tax.
LOL. Catch up with what? Their high unemployment and stagnant economies? Raising taxes will go a long way to meeting those goals.
When I heard the socialists at the OECD kvetching about "unfair tax competition" (how dare people be able to move their investments to countries with lower tax rates) I thought there was no such thing. Now I can say I was wrong, there actually is unfair tax competition (compete with Europe to make sure we're just as confiscatory as they are)!
Bah, did anyone ask Big Oil how much it cost to add MTBE to the gas? Maybe, maybe not, maybe Big Oil came up with a number, maybe they didn't, but the fact of the matter was that WE didn't get asked, we got told, and got it rammed down our throats. This would be done with the same level of courtesy.
The only beef I see (that could not be solved with similar fascist tactics as the "reformulated gas" disaster) has already been mentioned -- what to do about out-of-state cars, cars without OBD functionality, etc.
"the only way to enforce this is to read the odometer during the yearly inspection and levy the tax based on miles driven since last year."
That could be contested in court as a violation of the interState commerce clause. How does the State taxing you know how many miles you spent driving within its borders?
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