You pesky Americans, you think you can get away with paying less fuel taxes by buying those economy cars and hybrids.
Enoughofthis!
We the government are smarter than that and will therefore tax you by the mile.
http://www.newsday.com/…,6754105,print.story
Unbelievable.
Those people are morons. Or they are so deep in the car and oil industies pocket they can’t even see daylight.
“Taxman”
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
'Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet
Don’t ask me what I want it for
If you don’t want to pay some more
'Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me
If (with a capital I) infrastructure was solely funded by the users of that infrastructure, and all taxes collected for infrastructure were used for infrastructure, I would think that would be the “conservative” ideal. Obviously if the cash collected goes to help farmers, airport security, welfare, etc, its BS. But the “conservative” ideal system, would have the users of a service pay for the amount of that service that they use, no?
As far as cars go it should be:
a gas tax to deal with (and only with) the externalities of burning fossil fuels (and nothing would be exempt including home heating fuel and fuel for farm equipment).a usage tax (based upon mileage, GVW and maybe HP), to deal with (and only with) the costs associated with building and maintaining roads/bridges/etc. A big truck or a car with 500HP does much more damage to the road than a small car or motorcycle, and thus should pay their “share” of the road upkeep…
As much as people hate tolls, its a much more “conservative” way to pay for the said road/bridge.
I don’t know if that is the best solution, but he was right on with this statement:
“One of the things I think everyone agrees with around reauthorization of the highway bill is that the highway trust fund is an antiquated system for funding our highways,” LaHood said.
From wikipedia:
Tax revenues directed to the HTF are derived from excise taxes on highway motor fuel and truck related taxes on truck tires, sales of trucks and trailers, and heavy vehicle use.
The Highway Trust Fund is unique in that it is funded by the users, namely those who travel on the highways. It is modeled on the Social Security Trust Fund, where money goes to the general treasury but is credited to the fund. In the original Highway Revenue Act, the crediting of user taxes to the HTF was set to expire at the end of fiscal year 1972.
In September 2008 the fund was depleted of funds and required a transfer of $8 billion from general revenue funds, by act of Congress. Currently the fund is projected to run out in 2009.
Actualy it seems like it would make sense to charge a tax for mileage*vehicle weight. ie…a Prius that gets a million miles to the gallon damges the roads and bridges just as much as a car of the same weight that gets 2 miles a gallon. Right?
I’m just sayin’
I just think it is highly comical (and I have to look at it that way or I go insane) that the system was funded by a fuel tax and then when people conserved, suddenly it’s like “we can’t have this” and they shift to mileage. I would also agree that if the money goes for roads and bridges then it is a reasonable tax. Unfortunately, I already have a high distrust for this administration and I don’t expect them to do anything that will benefit the majority of the American people. Rather the money will likely be used for bullet trains from Vegas to Disneyland, tax credits for hybrids, solar panels other special interest crap.
Those people are morons. Or they are so deep in the car and oil industies pocket they can’t even see daylight.
Mark,
Really?
It seems riduculous, but the article does point out the problem - as fuel use drops the model of taxing fuel will become less useful for deriving the revenue needed to keep roads, bridges and other road infrastructure in safe and operational order. They will have to get the money from somewhere. So why not tax road users based on their road use. If you use the roads, the bridges and the road infrastructure more, you pay more. Seems fair to me. I never really know what these people are thinking - is some fairy going to come along and pay for the road repairs and up-grades? Where do they think the money is going to come from?
Many top economists when queried on these matters, seem to always say that consumption and useage taxes are the best way to go about this. Like in Canada, the GST was absolutely hated and loathed by consumers, but every major economist in the country said it was the best thing that the Federal government ever did, and these same ecconomists urged the current Harper government not to start rolling the GST back - but Stephen Harper did not listen and did it anyway!
Agree with your last point, but not so much with your first. Gas usage was the best proxy for “amount of infrastructure” used. With changing technology it may no longer the case.
Its no different in business. If I am looking for result X, and have the data that says if I monitor input Y I get result X, I would monitor input Y until such time where X is no longer “caused” by Y. And then adapt my process to monitor something else more relevant or causal, (input Z).
You should be more outraged that transportation $$$ are not always used for transportation 
Those people are morons. Or they are so deep in the car and oil industies pocket they can’t even see daylight.
Mark,
Really?
It seems riduculous, but the article does point out the problem - as fuel use drops the model of taxing fuel will become less useful for deriving the revenue needed to keep roads, bridges and other road infrastructure in safe and operational order. They will have to get the money from somewhere. So why not tax road users based on their road use. If you use the roads, the bridges and the road infrastructure more, you pay more. Seems fair to me. I never really know what these people are thinking - is some fairy going to come along and pay for the road repairs and up-grades? Where do they think the money is going to come from?
Many top economists when queried on these matters, seem to always say that consumption and useage taxes are the best way to go about this. Like in Canada, the GST was absolutely hated and loathed by consumers, but every major economist in the country said it was the best thing that the Federal government ever did, and these same ecconomists urged the current Harper government not to start rolling the GST back - but Stephen Harper did not listen and did it anyway!
As nicotine usage dropped they just upped the taxes on cigs. Of course that was to "help" people get healthy. Now the gov. can help us stay at home by raising taxes new ways. Fortunately for me I like my home.
Looks like you and the Prius drivers are similarly outraged.
When these ideas first arrived months and sometimes years ago, people driving fuel efficient cars were outraged at the thought. One of the benefits of driving a fuel efficient car is that you’re paying less. If you pay the same amount per mile as an SUV or even a semi you lose much of the benefit.
A perfect system would not allow the gubmint to track where you are at all times. However, it would calculate how much of the road you are using. Say a multiplier of miles driven by weight of vehicle. Right now, a loaded semi causes several thousand times more damage to the road than a car, but they don’t pay several thousand times more per mile. A road designed and built for passenger cars costs a fraction of one that is designed and built to be able to withstand regular truck traffic.
It seems riduculous, but the article does point out the problem - as fuel use drops the model of taxing fuel will become less useful for deriving the revenue needed to keep roads, bridges and other road infrastructure in safe and operational order.
The model does not change at all as milage increases. Fuel use per vehicle will drop over time as the CAFE starndards increase but fuel use will still be proportionate to the miles driven. The only problem here is that politicians don’t have the balls to raise taxes to fund road construction.
Whether you like this idea or not, it is basically already in place with the current per gallon state and federal fuel taxes. You can game the system a bit by buying a Prius instead of a Suburban but, on the other had, the current fuel tax system is progressive as to lower milage vehicles and that is a good thing if reducing fuel use is your goal. It seems are national policy is to have the Surburban driver pay more and the milage tax will actually go in the opposite direction.
As a practical matter, it seems it would be alot cheaper and easier to just change the fuel tax than it would be to manufacture and install the GPS chips and the systems to collect and process this information. This would also continue to progressively punish drivers of lower milage vehicles and they can use the GPS chip money to repave lots of highway.
How would this be policed? You do realize that most of the cars today have electronic odometers that can be adjusted through software. This is such that if you put larger tires on your car you can havethe odometer adjusted to read the correct mileage. Now if you tax individuals by the mile, who is going to know what I’ve done the the software settings?
Run larger tires (diameter) on your car the recorded mileage drops…
Take a truck like mine and swap out the 4.11 gears for the standard 3.73 gears, and instant mileage drop of about 10%…
do all three of these adjustments and I can sit pretty with recalibrated odometer…larger tires…changed gearing… 20% if not more change in my recorded mileage…
I travel 25,000 miles a year so nifty little change for me.
Or simply, how do you know if I didn’t disconnect a wire or two during the year?
Personnally, given the choices…I’d still opt for the increased taxes on fuel. Seems easier to police a fewer fueling stations as opposed to each and every vehicle on (or off) the road. Of course this method doesn’t require any additional gov’t involvement, no further adgencies created, no addtional oversight, no additional anything… oh well I guess it isn’t a good idea afterall to simple increase the tax rate/structure on fuel.
“LaHood said he firmly opposes raising the federal gasoline tax in the current recession.”
Instead he wants to propose a new tax. The end result is a tax increase whether it be increasing the old taxes or imposing a new tax with a kinder, gentler appearance.
Doesn’t taxing fuel and vehicle weight directly accomplish the objectives without requiring more bureaucracy? If you drive more, you use more fuel, pay more tax. Bigger vehicle, use more fuel, possible weight based fees, pay more tax. Small, fuel efficient car, use less fuel, pay less tax.
I don’t like the idea of higher taxes and fuel costs but I think this would end up being more expensive.
I raised the question on whether the “Gas tax” would be drop if this was implemented…maybe that should be in pink.
We were discussing this over lunch and we came up with at least 4 things that are supposed to “Fund” roads. I personally pay Property tax, a local sales tax, federal tax and gas, federal and state tax…all for roads.
A year ago there was a referendum for a 1% local sales tax that would drop property taxes and replace bonds. Well the tax went into effect and 2 days before we voted on it the politicians reneged on dropping the property tax.
All of these taxes and my roads still suck ass.
Same for “Education”. Property taxes, lottery, gambling all for education yet the state of education has gone down, almost inversely to the number of tax revenue sources.
At what point do we start to say something isn’t working properly?
~Matt
Until you have vehicles that no longer use gas, which if you’ve converted your Prius to a plug-in (aftermarket now, but not too far off), you would not pay for your road use…
I think that they experimented with this in OR, but not positive.
Rather the money will likely be used for bullet trains from Vegas to Disneyland
I don’t disagree with your sentiment, but you do know that the above was nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor perpetrated on Fox News, right?
At what point do we start to say something isn’t working properly?
Matt,
Wouldn’t that be right about now?
Viewed from my view-point as a Canadian, Americans as a whole are very anti-tax. Yes? No one ever wants to see taxes go up, yet clearly government and public expenses for all manner of things keeps going up. How are people expecting to cover the difference? Some sort of fairy will come along and pay for road construction and upgrades and maintenance. How about this massive debt that’s piling up - how’s that to be paid down? One way would be to increase taxes. However despite the obviousness of that, no one seems to talk about it.
I would imagine you would be required to buy some sort of new GPS gizmo so you can’t cheat. Although to each electronic measure there is usually an equal counter measure.
Steve,
If I believed for a moment that the money made on gasoline taxes went back into infrastructure and/or roads, that would be the day I would cash my chips in and go out behind the shed with a borrowed shotgun.
If what you say is true, our roads should be so pristine after all the money they made from the past year and half of outrageous prices and as we both know that isn’t the case.
Just look at Hwy 400. They said there is no money in the budget to replace BADLY needed guardrails seperating the North and Southbound lanes. Their closest approximation of when this can be done? 10 years.
Gas tax is going nowhere close to infrastructure. Don’t worry though, they will find something else to tax if their revenues from gas start to decrease.