Highway to Hell!
Pay-per-mile tax is latest cash grab from greedy pols
By Howie Carr | Sunday, June 17, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Stuart Cahill
The hacks at the State House are salivating at the prospect of charging you a penny for every mile you drive your car in Massachusetts.
This is a tax increase so monstrous that it would make M. Stanley Dukakis blush. Were talking $555 million the first year.
Its an idea so terrible it cant be killed. Like a vampire, it keeps coming back to life, and the stake hasnt been invented that can be driven through its black heart.
The Vehicle Miles Traveled Fee, thats what the payroll patriots and union thugs are calling it now, in a new transportation report full of similar euphemisms. New taxes, for instance, are now funding strategies and local financial commitment.
This new bleeding of the Dreaded Private Sector is necessary to pay for the Green Line Extension. Its budgeted for $1.3 billion. By comparison, the Big Dig was initially budgeted for $2.6 million, and came in at $22 billion ... and counting.
This boondoggle is the Big Dig for the 21st century, although it may be eclipsed eventually by the even more preposterous proposal of commuter rail to New Bedford and Fall River, those two bustling Bristol metropolises. Itll help the South Coasts self-esteem, you understand. They wont feel neglected by the rest of the state. Its the same specious argument the hacks made when they bought that bust-out law school in Dartmouth as a place to park more unemployable lawyers in six-figure do-nothing jobs behind which come the six-figure pensions and the free medical care for life.
But of course these new white elephants have only the barest connection to transportation. Its really about more money to keep the hackerama humming, by paying off contractors and pinky-ring unions who will then kick back to the pols who are stealing the money from the taxpayers.
And the projects will take approximately forever. Remember the state motto: Dont Kill the Job.
We are talking mega-bucks here. That $555 million in the first year would be when theyre giving motorists what they consider a break, by charging a mere .85 cent a mile.
This boondoggle is the Big Dig for the 21st century, although it may be eclipsed eventually by the even more preposterous proposal of commuter rail to New Bedford and Fall River, those two bustling Bristol metropolises. Itll help the South Coasts self-esteem, you understand. They wont feel neglected by the rest of the state. Its the same specious argument the hacks made when they bought that bust-out law school in Dartmouth as a place to park more unemployable lawyers in six-figure do-nothing jobs behind which come the six-figure pensions and the free medical care for life.
But of course these new white elephants have only the barest connection to transportation. Its really about more money to keep the hackerama humming, by paying off contractors and pinky-ring unions who will then kick back to the pols who are stealing the money from the taxpayers.
And the projects will take approximately forever. Remember the state motto: Dont Kill the Job.
We are talking mega-bucks here. That $555 million in the first year would be when theyre giving motorists what they consider a break, by charging a mere .85 cent a mile.
Drivers, its just your fair share. Dont be a slacker. Its not enough that you already pay tolls, and the auto excise tax, and the 6.25 percent sales tax when you buy the car, not to mention the federal gasoline tax, and the state gasoline tax, which reminds me, another of the new funding strategies reported by the State House News Service is indexing the states gas tax to inflation.
Would it likewise be indexed to deflation? Nah. But if something is indexed to inflation, does that not tend to cause more inflation? Thats OK, though, because it means more revenues for the state, and ... for the children.
Remember when Bill Weld was governor and it cost nothing to renew your car registration? Which seemed only fair because, with the new technologies, the process costs next to nothing. First the hacks brought back the registration fee, because their relatives and cronies and cash contributors needed jobs, as opposed to work. Now they want to jack up the fees another $10. We have to do something about the MBTA deficit, they claim, which is another way of saying, paying for the bloated pensions of all the coatholders who retired with full pensions at age 43 after putting in an arduous 23 years of public service.
Think about this penny-a-mile tax. The leeches say the average motorist drives 14,800 miles a year, so itll only cost $148 extra. Of course, if anyone ever suggested increasing medical co-pays for MBTA retirees by $148 a year, that would set off a firestorm. That would be economic fascism.
Suppose you own a trucking company in Massachusetts. Or you employ a fleet of salespeople who spend the week driving from one appointment to the next. If you have to expand, do you think youd be more inclined to look in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, where the Vehicle Miles Traveled Fee is only zero?
It used to be relatively easy to turn back the odometer on a car. With the new electronic systems, its surely more difficult, but something tells me that if theres $555 million on the table, new technologies will be developed. And sooner rather than later.
And I also suspect that a lot more people will be registering their vehicles in New Hampshire. As if they arent already.
Of course, the tax-crazed governor dismisses these proposed new taxes as hypotheticals. Trial balloons is more like it. I can already envision the compromise. OK, OK, we wont hit you with .85 cents the first year. Itll only be a half-cent ... because were Democrats and we care about working people, that is as long as they dont work.
Thank you sir, may I have another!
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061139467
That article needs its own dedicated thread!
I drive 50K per year - I am not amused with Deval (never was)
How about those riding the T paying the bill for a change.