LaHood eyes taxing miles driven

Gas taxes would pay for the highway programs if Congress would keep there greedy paws out of it,.....Gas taxes were never supposed to be allocated to the general fund....

 

The system mentioned in the article linked above would cost far more to implement and monitor than anything gained could pay for. What they're suggesting is basically a GPS "taxi meter" that will levy a tax from your vehicle.

The current fuel tax is better at addressing the costs of funding roads and infrastructure projects, and here is the reasoning as I see it:

Heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear on roads, and more stress on bridges, requiring more expense. These same heavier vehicles consume more fuel, and as a result, pay more taxes for maintenance and construction.

Lighter vehicles, by contrast, cause less wear and tear on roads, almost no stress on bridges (by themselves), requiring far less maintenance and construction. They use less fuel, and therefore, pay less fuel based taxes.

Using the outline above, there is absolutely no way to beat simplicity in a system. If the tax is required, then keep the system we have in place. As far as I'm concerned, if vehicles are introduced that use no fuel at all - how much wear and tear can they possibly cause? I'm all for the system we have, it has worked for years.

What this new program would truly be aimed at, is a more complicated (and less transparent) way of increasing taxes on a broad scale. Who would be monitoring these expensive, highly technical "taxi meters" installed in vehicles FREE CITIZENS operate? And who would oversee any errors from them? Who pays for this entirely new, extremely complicated and ridiculously hard to monitor, "taxi meter" system? Obviously the American taxpayer - the same good folks left holding the bill for everything else - and the same folks that would be paying a higher tax.

I'm not an alarmist at heart, but I get very concerned when any elected officials show themselves to be this ignorant. It is far more obvious that someone has an eye on providing these "watchdog" GPS location systems as a new business venture to fatten their pockets, and nail the owners of vehicles everywhere with yet a new tax that noone will be able to comprehend easily.

I, as a military veteran, and an upstanding free citizen of the United States of America, will NEVER ALLOW some moronic program to install a GPS "taxi meter" in any vehicle I own. If it ever comes to that BREACH OF PERSONAL PRIVACY, I will be glad to buy a bicycle or a horse drawn cart - or better yet - LEAVE THIS COUNTRY.

Just my 2 cents and my own personal layman take on this madness. All of it makes me wonder where the people are coming from that we employ to run our government agencies. You know what makes far more sense? Spending our tax dollars wisely and prudently, and as Walleye said above, the gas taxes were never supposed to be spent in the general funds (much like the tobacco taxes, etc).

 

An article came out yesterday that the government and especially the new head of the DOT were considering a tax on the miles we drive in our cars.They are thinking that one day soon, new cars will be fitted with a "box" to record miles driven and tax us on it.
My question is very simple, is there an end to taxes? Certainly not even death ends taxes since there are taxes on everything that applies to the funeral and then the -Inheritance tax-.
Next, if we one day stop driving and start waliking are they going to put little meters in our shoes and tax what we walk?
What if we started using bicycles?Will they tax the "style of bike" we have after purchase for miles peddled?
The BEATLES weren't too far off when they penned the song "TAXMAN".
Whatever it comes down to, they are creative at making new taxes and continuing the old ones that are no more than a mere laugh.
The reason they want to do the "miles driven" tax is due to the fact that we are driving less, and the revenue from gas taxes has gone down....hence,we need a new tax to make up the difference.
I agree that taxes are necessary for many reasons, but in times like we are having now,the blurting out of a possible new tax is totally uncalled for.
As time goes on I wonder what new taxes they will dream up, and I wonder how long we will just let this happen as it shrinks our incomes.
I would like to hear from everyone in a freindly manner on this topic.
Thank You.
mcr&deb.

 

I hear that some states are thinking of doing such a thing. If they raise taxes us on taking a pee they will..

 

I think that in the next 4 years you are going to see taxes on just about everything that Isn't being taxed yet.

 

When Kwame Kilpatrick was still Detroit's mayor I heard he wanted to put an extra tax on fast food.

 

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This tax is coming. I don't care what Obama says. It CAN NOT be stopped.

Collateral damage --- Electric/Alternative fuel cell vehicles don't pay excise taxes yet. Unless they're E85 blend alternate, or propane.

So the goobermint will have to develop a means of taxation on these vehicles. And their "non fuel" method of operation.

Per mile tax....is a given.

 

I also heard that they wanted to tax farmers that have cows due to their methane output! Or any animal they had that emits methane gas...
Gee what else can they tax?

 

I can see it now, Taxing the Air we take in because of the output is CO2