Buttigieg Has an Update About His Mileage Tax Idea

townhall.com ^ | 3/29/2021 | Leah Barkoukis

[Alberta's Child]

Here's the biggest problem the USDOT and state highway departments are dealing with right now:

So there are two underlying trends here that are killing the whole system:

1. The Federal fuel tax is set at a static number that was established in 1993. It has lost a lot of purchasing power to inflation.

2. Improvements in fuel efficiency mean a typical motorist may pay LESS in fuel taxes today than he did 25 years ago even if he drives MORE.

[Political Junkie Too]

Shouldn't this mileage tax only apply to driving on federal roads?

Why should I pay the federal government to drive out of my garage and onto city roads that are paid for with gas taxes? Why do I have to pay the federal government to go to the neighborhood grocery store or pharmacy or fast food?

-PJ

[Chode]

Buttiplug...

[Alberta's Child]

Shouldn't this mileage tax only apply to driving on federal roads?

That's a good point ... until you dig into your own municipal budget and find that the USDOT also extends grants to states, counties, and municipalities to resurface LOCAL roads.

[oldtech]

I like the idea of putting the mileage tax on electrics only...and THEN using this for building up the electrical grid. Subsidies for electrics was never a good idea. Appointing Buttigieg for a gov’t. job falls in the same category. Man has no business in setting any public policy & here’s the proof.

[Freedom56v2]

Shouldn’t this mileage tax only apply to driving on federal roads?
Why should I pay the federal government to drive out of my garage and onto city roads that are paid for with gas taxes? Why do I have to pay the federal government to go to the neighborhood grocery store or pharmacy or fast food?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interesting...We have lots of tollroads in my area—and I rarely use US highways...Not sure how would determine the difference.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

rktman :" ..Not actually going to do anything..Besides, she’s probably not sure where folks are talking about. "

By virtue of not going there, Harris maintains "deniable plausibility",
and can say, 'I haven't seen any problem'.
The Buy-den ministration is playing 2 dimensional chess,
with a leader who can't even handle simplistic "tic-tack-toe".
Thank goodness he can read a teleprompter, or else, he would already be in the dust bin of history.

[Political Junkie Too]

Except that "grants," by definition, are gifts and not expected to be repaid.

Taxing to recover the cost of grants goes against the very nature of grants.

-PJ

[knarf]

Of course, mannn

[Political Junkie Too]

Tolls on federal roads would be double taxation if you pay the toll PLUS the mileage tax for driving on the toll road.

-PJ

[SeekAndFind]

[Organic Panic]

“He then reiterated Biden’s pledge to not raise taxes on those earning under $400,000.”

They want call tax increases “taxes.” They will be called something like “For the children benefit funding program” or “Save the planet from carbon collections.” Never a tax. But soon enough inflation will be so out of control everyone will be making over $400,000 a year.

[dearolddad]

We already have a “user pays principle—the idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive.” - it’s called a gasoline tax on every gallon of gas

You can safely bet your backside that if or when the mileage tax starts the gas tax will not end. Can you say double taxation?

[HamiltonJay]

So, if you are a low income individual who drive your old beat up truck around lots of miles every year collecting scrap metal and various other things to make your living, you will somehow be exempt from a mileage based tax??? Or if you are low income person who lives in a rural area and need to drive lots of miles every year just to do everything because nothing is close by.. not your job, not your grocer store, not your doctors office... you will be exempt?

How is that going to work ?

Stolen elections have consequences.. suckers.

[faithhopecharity]

South Bend’s greatest embarrassment since Notre Dame awarded Obama an honorary doctorate (when the ONLY politicial thing he’d ever done was to propose that live-born babies be murdered if their parents didn’t want them)
it is a shame that a nice city like South Bend has to suffer TWO such awful smears on its reputation

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

oldtech :" Appointing Buttigieg for a gov’t. job falls in the same category."

Buttigieg was not hired on his ability, or professional or political merit,
he was hired to fulfill the "self-identity' crowd of LGBQ inclusive folks as a poster boy.

[Freedom56v2]

Oh I did not mean to say would pay fed tax for tollroads...Those are private. Did not mean double taxation.

But I wonder how would implement a plan such as you suggest.

[USS Alaska]

We hired the government to build us roads, bought and paid for by taxpayers.

Once built, the government is gracious enough to rent the roads back to us.

Am I seeing this right?

Yep.

And the crooks in PA did it one better.

In 1933 they built the first "Turnpike" using a 30 year bond, to be paid for via user fees.

As 1963 approached, the politicians realized that this "Pay to Use" roadway was a great cash cow, and the debt was about to be paid off, and the road would then be turned over to the state to maintain, via gas taxes and no more user fees.

Couldn't have that, all those fat cat executive jobs along with the thousands of union jobs given out by politicians {ticket takers, road maint. etc} would be eliminated.

They reissued the bond to cover the cost of "New Construction" spurs off of the main system.

The cash continued to flow, so much so, that the PA gummint hogs, put a five hundred million charge on the Turnpike Commission, so that now the drivers fees, are being used to maintain the roads that the gas tax was supposed to do.

The Bond will never be paid down, because the politicians in Harrisburg know that the average PA resident has no clue.

We now have a "spur" Route 66 that is 12 miles from end to end, and the charge to use this spur, either from end to end, or for a single exit of ONE MILE, is $3.90 without an EZ Pass or the very cheap rate of $1.60 per mile.

The good news is that since the rates are so high, traffic is so low, that you can drive like you are on the Autobahn.

[rktman]

This “hole” cabinet appears to just be checking boxes.

[ConservativeInPA]

I am completely for use taxes. However, the way gas taxes are setup now a lot of that funding goes into subsidizing mass transit in cities. A real use tax would be, if you use a road, you only pay for the road. If you use a train, bus or subway, you pay a fare that pays for what you are riding and not a road. Don't make people who don't ride mass transit to subsidize those that do. When it comes to this whole gas vs. electric debate, has it occurred to anyone that those who drive electric vehicles have higher electric bills? So tax electricity, but have a minimum household threshold that isn't taxed (although it already is). That would insure at least partly that those those who buy gasoline are not taxed twice for roads.

Alternatively, eliminate of all forms of taxation: fees, income, interest/dividends, capital gains, estate, business, social security, Medicare, property tax and so on. Then replace with a flat use tax on all retail goods and services. That is one rate for everything. Business to business transactions are not taxed. Businesses no longer pay any taxes. But businesses with retail customers will collect a use (sales) tax.

I like this, not necessarily because I am pro-business. It is because I am pro-small business. It immediately puts all businesses on an equal playing field. Large business have no incentive to lobby for tax breaks that help them but hurt their small competitors. This also completely eliminates the cost of business tax preparation and maintaining accounting schemes due to the tax code. Business will be able to have better accounting that leads to better financial decisions because they do not have to deal with government obfuscation of their financial records solely for the purpose of meeting the requirements of tax code.

Some may immediately think that it is not fair that business pay no taxes. They don't today. Consumers buy retail products and services and the business taxes are built into the price. But, if you want to look for something that is unfair, it would be the United States has no business tax. That is unfair to the rest of the world, and exactly the way I like it. There will be businesses lined up to come to America worse than illegals at the border.

I also like a use tax because everyone gets taxed. There are too many that do not get taxed today and due to that they have no concern about how tax dollars are spent. Everyone is part of society and everyone contributes to government. The rich pay more because they consume more. The poor pay less because they consume less.

Another advantage is there are no tax forms to file for individuals. Businesses would have to file use taxes just like they do today and I know from experience that that is very easy. Sorry tax accountants and tax lawyers, you'll have to learn to code. (Written somewhat facetiously.) Those in the tax business will have to adapt their general knowledge, skills and abilities to solving productive problems. Taxes are unproductive. They are an expense that adds zero to an end product or service.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the IRS will be gone. They can no longer be used as a weapon against anyone. Personally, I would relish the day that every IRS employee becomes unemployed. They are the epitome of the establishment and government waste. They are pure takers since they do not make anything.

Just to wrap this up. This needs to be an amendment to the US Constitution, not a change to the tax code. We do not need to see income and other taxes creep back into the tax code. The tax code gets scraped and replaced with one number: that is the federal use tax percentage for all retail sales and services. State collect that use tax. Not the federal government. (I sort of like the idea of states holding the power of tax dollars over the federal government.)