Here it comes boys and girls

[oldman34]

Our government wants to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Instead of drilling for it on our own soil they want us to use better/cleaner sources of transportation energy.
What does less gas usage mean? Less taxe money from Federal Fuel taxes.

They have to get that money from somewhere right? So what they propose is charging you per mile that you drive. How are they going to know how far you drive you ask?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/...le_mileage_tax


Big Brother is trying to watch you.

[JohnnyCache]

Seriously, all those goddamn toll meters and stuff people put in their car voluntarially are pretty creepy.

On the other hand, I would support a highway tax based on usage - if all they did was say, check your odometer when you renewed your plates (What do you mean, "There's a simple analogue solution to this issue that doesn't involve invasively tracking people's movements?")

The only problem with such a usage tax is right now we want to incentivize buying green cars, not increase their hidden costs vs the current system.

[oldman34]

Seriously, all those goddamn toll meters and stuff people put in their car voluntarially are pretty creepy.

On the other hand, I would support a highway tax based on usage - if all they did was say, check your odometer when you renewed your plates (What do you mean, "There's a simple analogue solution to this issue that doesn't involve invasively tracking people's movements?")

The only problem with such a usage tax is right now we want to incentivize buying green cars, not increase their hidden costs vs the current system.

Some states would have to change the way they renewed plates.
Mississippi just mails the registration to you and you send them the cash. Then they mail you a sticker for the plate.
Inspection are $5 but you just go to a gas station and get it.

Maybe everytime you got gas you could run a cable to the pump to dload your usage.

The tracker is insane, not to mention when it breaks who pays to fix it...me or the government?

[JohnnyCache]

Some states would have to change the way they renewed plates.
Mississippi just mails the registration to you and you send them the cash. Then they mail you a sticker for the plate.
Inspection are $5 but you just go to a gas station and get it.

Maybe everytime you got gas you could run a cable to the pump to dload your usage.

The tracker is insane, not to mention when it breaks who pays to fix it...me or the government?

Well, yeah, a lot of things would have to be fixed...for one thing, what keeps me from taking the thing out of its casing and leaving it in my garage all year?

But what offends me about this, and about every major law passed since 9/11 to tell you the truth is this

"Appealing sounding name"
"actual purpose may or may not be meaningful"
"Invasive measures will be used for enforcement even when not the most cost effective or reasonable way to do so"
"If you question it, you hate freedom and/or are a george-nouri caller calibre kook"

There's nothing wrong with a highway tax based on usage, in concept. It's a very fair idea. But - we have a perfectly good system for incrementing the mileage of a vehicle already, good enough we use it for myriad commercial purposes. We don't need a government GPS in every car.

And no one EVER says "OK, well, we like the tax, but why the GPS?" It's always this great goddamn slugfest to either suppress or pass the entire measure.

[cuatro76]

I could see a toll every time you cross state lines being reasonable.

[oldman34]

Well, yeah, a lot of things would have to be fixed...for one thing, what keeps me from taking the thing out of its casing and leaving it in my garage all year?

But what offends me about this, and about every major law passed since 9/11 to tell you the truth is this

"Appealing sounding name"
"actual purpose may or may not be meaningful"
"Invasive measures will be used for enforcement even when not the most cost effective or reasonable way to do so"
"If you question it, you hate freedom and/or are a george-nouri caller calibre kook"

There's nothing wrong with a highway tax based on usage, in concept. It's a very fair idea. But - we have a perfectly good system for incrementing the mileage of a vehicle already, good enough we use it for myriad commercial purposes. We don't need a government GPS in every car.

And no one EVER says "OK, well, we like the tax, but why the GPS?" It's always this great goddamn slugfest to either suppress or pass the entire measure.

But Johnny....its for the children. Their future......cant you see?

Kind of like the current "stimulus" package. 4% stimulus.....96% pet projects...so much for change Barack.

[oldman34]

I could see a toll every time you cross state lines being reasonable.

Not a perfect solution but a good one. What if I bypass the thing on side roads?

[Vince Tortelli]

As someone who lives right on the state line and crosses over on a daily basis: OH HELL NOOO! Why should I have my lower middle class income waterboarded because of an accident of geography? And cutting a bit of government spending to go along with the new taxes would be nice.

[oldman34]

As someone who lives right on the state line and crosses over on a daily basis: OH HELL NOOO! Why should I have my lower middle class income waterboarded because of an accident of geography? And cutting a bit of government spending to go along with the new taxes would be nice.

Same here.

[mike321]

As someone who lives right on the state line and crosses over on a daily basis: OH HELL NOOO! Why should I have my lower middle class income waterboarded because of an accident of geography? And cutting a bit of government spending to go along with the new taxes would be nice.

Get a bigger state and stop complaining!