Posted on 03/29/2009 6:12:42 AM PDT by Osage Orange
Mileage tax might be road bill funding source, Inhofe says
By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
Published: 3/26/2009 2:31 AM
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Wednesday that a proposal to tax motorists on the miles they drive is being looked at as an alternative method to funding much-needed road projects.
Conceding that such an approach could be awkward, the Oklahoma Republican said such proposals must be part of the discussion as he and other key member of Congress begin putting together the next huge transportation spending authorization bill.
"No one thing is going to do it,'' Inhofe said, citing the backlog of transportation needs and a fuel tax that no longer raises enough revenue.
As the top Republican on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over transportation legislation, Inhofe will play a major role in crafting the bill to replace the current law, which expires in September.
Inhofe spoke during an interview after a hearing with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Disappointing several members of the committee, LaHood once again ruled out an increase in the fuel tax as a way to generate more money for transportation projects. He cited the difficulty in raising taxes during hard economic times.
Even though the White House strongly came out last month against LaHood's suggestion that lawmakers should discuss taxing motorists on miles driven, he seemed to leave that idea on the table.
Inhofe confirmed that such a proposal is still alive.
"We are going to try to come up with something in terms of a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) approach,'' he said, agreeing with LaHood that a fuel tax increase should not be one of the options.
"On the VMT, no one has figured out how you can do that other than the honor system, which never works.''
Inhofe said one possible method could be checking a vehicle's mileage when its registration is renewed.
A VMT tax could be layered on top of the fuel tax, which might be reduced dramatically or eliminated altogether, Inhofe said.
Automobiles, especially hybrids, are not using as much fuel as they once did, he said, explaining why the fuel tax no longer can be viewed as a reliable source for transportation projects.
Inhofe said other options under review include indexing the fuel tax to inflation and limiting the use of money in the trust fund to highways and bridges.
Supporters of mass transit projects and other programs would have to look elsewhere for funding, he said.
Inhofe said the amount of the next multiyear transportation bill needs to come in at about $400 billion.
His office reported that the last bill totaled $286.4 billion.
Inhofe, who is proud of his conservative voting record in Congress, said, "I know it sounds funny coming from me, being a big spender in that area, but I am.''
He said such a dramatic increase is necessary because of the huge backlog of projects.
"It is somewhat life-threatening,'' he said of the condition of certain roads.
Oklahoma has slipped into last place among the states in the condition of its bridges, he said, citing examples of concrete falling off some of them.
I see a lot of “GPS Parties” in the future.
GPS tracking gives time, route, and location information. One little baby step from that gives them speed information.
Get ready for automatic tickets in the mail.
Spending too much time driving to no sales tax/lower sales tax states? You-know-who will want to know why.
Patronizing gun shows and gun shops too much? You-know-who will want to know why.
The possibilities are endless, none of them good.
Freakin moron marxist
Thanks to all posters. BUMP BUMP!
Thanks for the link:
Here’s was my note to him:
PEOPLE LIKE THE GASOLINE TAX!!!!
Please do not replace it with a mileage tax. Once you start tracking everyone’s movements, then you can start telling people when they can drive (i.e., charge more during rush hour), where they can drive, individualize what people pay (i.e., social workers pay less than aerospace workers to drive), and even charge people rates based on their income levels.
Now I understand you have no intention to do any of that. But when you ENABLE it, then others may just take advantage of it.
Better idea - raise the gasoline tax, as much as necessary. And if everyone goes electric, then impose an electricity tax (and it would only have to be very small to raise a lot of money).
But - PLEASE LET US DRIVE WITH A BIT OF PRIVACY
Us conservatives really like you and would love to see you become President, but you’re totally off the reservation on this one and it’s probably a deal-killer if you do want the top job.
I’m not suprised to hear our roads in Okla are the worst and he is serious when is says “life threatening”. We have pieces of overpasses falling on cars occassionally.
Inhofe is one of the more conservative senators so this approach shocked me. My guess would be that the people who votes republican, most living in the south and midwest, drive more. We’re more likely to live in small towns or suburbs so this would cost us more. What is he thinking??? I say let’s tax stupidity instead.
Hey that sound like a line the republican party should start using!
My thought exactly. What happened to the money for those "shovel-ready" projects, which obviously would include roads. My oldest son has to drive about an hour to and from work every day, plus pay tolls on the Thruway both ways. There is no other mode of transportation to get him there. And there are plenty of other people who drive long-distances for their jobs. These Beltway a-holes walk out their front doors, and have a driver drop them off at work. They have no idea how the average American gets to work.
The only politician willing to open his mouth about this has a death wish. He may as well be thinking aloud about an Air Tax. What a moron. I thought Inhofe was smarter than this.
I've been through this discussion several times now on FR, so I'll just reiterate that you need to consider that there are 250 million *passenger* vehicles in America, and that the federal government would require decades if ever to build the infrastructure needed to do "GPS tracking".
Yes, you could slap a GPS device on a single car. Yes you could track a single car (several online services do this already). No you could not easilt track 250 million cars. No you could naot eaily retrofit 250 million cars. No you could not easily and legally retrofit and then track the entire U.S. commercial "fleet". No you could not easily build the systems and processes need to do anything useful with the captured data from these GPS devices. No you could not easily build (from scratch) the computer systems capacity and software to simultaneously track millions of vehhicles on America's roads.
Given the above, you have to ask what is the benefit from actually pursuing the above. That is, the benefit after you've surmounted all the legal and public policy hurdles and millions of PO'd taxpayers.
And btw....I don't like the gas tax...And I wouldn't vote for Inhofe to be POTUS...or even TOTUS.
: )
Inhofe needsx to wear an ankle bracelelt for a year or tewo, and have every meter of his behavior made public, right down to bathroom visits. This nation is plummeting into fascist territory and fools like Inhofe are blind as bats to it. They need a hands on demonstration of the way wicked people like o ba ma and his goons will use data.
When has a “impossible, wacky, debt ridden Big Government Program” stopped them from trying?
“The so-called “much needed highway projects” won’t be needed. Nobody will be able to afford to go anywhere so the highways can just be abandoned for lack of use.”
Maybe Harry Reids train from LA to Vegas is just the start.
time for a new party now.
How about a new movement: A NO VOTE ON ALL INCUMBENTS FOR A COUPLE OF ELECTION CYCLES!!!
>>>> Us conservatives really like you and would love to see you become President, <<<<<<
No, we don’t. We wouldn’t.
Any alleged Republican who harbors such ideas and actually has the contempt for his constituents to utter them should be thrashed and kicked out of office at the very first chance.
More GOP grave digging. They can dig it and then jump in themselves.
Useless to waste time on them.
>>>>> Time to dump the Republican party. <<<<<<<<
Agreed.
These U.S. Senators are despicable.
All of them.
Graham, Grassly, Inhofe, McQueeg....
They’re each and every once just as horrible as Teddy Kennedy.
With each insane notion, like this one, we inch closer and closer to another American revolution. These gasbags MUST be made to understand that they work for US, not themselves, and not their party masters.
We are taxed more than enough. It’s time to push Federal government back within the confines of the US Constitution; a document that has been ignored for far too long in Washington DC.
It’s time to take back the country.
Is this Free Republic or DU?
The reason the gas tax is so HIGH is due to the bloated bureaucracy and corrupt officials overseeing the implementation/construction of the funds. Oversight and more importantly, actually doing something about the management of our tax dollars is why our tax bill is so high (That and programs which are fundamentally inefficient).
>>>>> I said they were “acting” like them.... <<<<<<<
Yes, all Senators are “actors”, just as Inhofe “acts” like a Republican.
In fact it’s just as accurate to call all Senators “alleged Republicans”.
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