Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Kotz / Politics Taxing Your Mileage Instead of Your Gas Use
Posted by Pete Kotz on Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 3:29 PM
I'm not sure what you make of this, but it doesn't sound good to me. Several states and Congress are examining whether to pull the emphasis off gas taxes, and instead begin to bill drivers based on how many miles they drive.
Though the concept is a decade old, it seems to be picking up steam. It stems from the notion that, due to increasingly fuel efficient cars, gas taxes will no longer be able to cover the cost of road maintenance. So lawmakers from Oregon to Idaho, Rhode Island to North Carolina, are considering shifting the burden from gas taxes to mileage taxes.
It seems a rather counter-productive idea, not to mention a political loser. I can see why an anti-sprawl state like Oregon would want suburban drivers to pay more, since they account for most new road construction. But it takes an incentive away from fuel efficiency--where incentive seems needed most--and would penalize rural people, who have to drive significant distances just to fulfill basic needs. And since it took a major financial crisis for us to limit our energy use, it's hard to see rural legislators--especially in the red states--getting behind something like this.
Am I missing something here?
Comments (1)
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I'd say there would be quite a few logistical and jurisictional obstacles to overcome to make such a system work - especially if some states adopt the scheme and some don't.
People going on vacation and people who routinely drive though several states could wind up getting overcharged because they would pay based on the gas they bought in some states and then pay again based on the miles they drove in others.
In order to track not only how many miles a car was driven but WHERE it was driven to sort all that out, the government would have to require some kind of GPS device that recorded where the car was at all times to keep up with it.
And that means government would be able to track every single place the car driver went at all times.
I doubt that idea would be very popular.
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