Posted on 12/14/2007 5:39:42 AM PST by Bat_Chemist
Quick drives to the grocery store and long road trips to Grandma's might not be as tempting some day in North Carolina. < snip >
(Excerpt) Read more at starnewsonline.com ...
yah...Portland OR is toying with that idea, but are also seriously considering a per-household monthly “Street Maintenance Fee” on residences, and a much higher one for all businesses; purportedly to do what they should have been doing all along: fixing the streets.
Of course they have been spending like drunken sailors for decades on streetcars, Loot Rail, a $50 million tram, along with many other things...
If the plan goes hand in hand with ELIMINATING gas taxes, well that might be worth considering. If it’s in addition to — forget it.
Any wonder as to why we don’t have electric vehicles yet?
Taxing the residents seem to ignore the out-of-state vehicles that now pay at the pump.
This I can not support.
I could support, or more accurately not greatly object to a system where at your annual inspection they transmit your mileage to the state and then the state sends you a bill.
Not worth it. Use of technology such as this never stays static—they say it will be used for one purpose, but it won’t stop there. Gives the government wayyyy too much power over one’s comings and goings.
They never eliminate them....they always add, add, add.
It's for the children, don't cha know?
I agree, and I think that was my 3rd thought on the subject. Government would NEVER misuse information-gathering, now would they? / sarc
Isn’t that akin to the current (Federal) income-tax scheme? Illegals and out-of-staters wouldn’t pay the taxes, and the burden falls harder and harder on state residents.
Hmm...maybe you have to “insert state ID card first” to get the in-state rate. Can you imagine the number and quality of fake NC DL’s if that got instituted?
Beau Mills, director of the N.C. Metropolitan Coalition, said the cost of a resident's water bill corresponds to the amount of water consumed.
"Maybe it makes sense to pay for the infrastructure in transportation in a similar way," he said Wednesday after a meeting of the 21st Century Transportation Committee in Raleigh.
Huh? How much more equitable can it get than with a tax per gallon? Those who use more, pay more. If your car/truck gets crappy gas mileage - you pay more. If you drive your car or truck greater distances - you pay more.
Never. It's not like they used Census data to find American citizens of Japanese descent so they could be imprisoned.
If people were able to frustrate it, the government almost certainly would turn to the simplest check on that available.
Visual verification of your odometer reading every year upon reregistration/annual inspection by a DMV/DOT agent. If the annual change in miles on the odometer didn’t square with GPS reported miles in the government computer, there would obviously be huge fines and penalties along with a demand for immdiate payment of back taxes owed before the car and registration were released back to the custody of the owner. 99% compliance would follow shortly after this. Noncompliance would occur mainly with the subset of the population using disposable automobiles (sub $1000 in value vehicles).
Road costs vary by something close to the square of the ton-miles driven. Heavier vehicles cost a lot more than light vehicles, and mileage really is meaningless when it comes to wear and tear on the roads. A 80,000 pound tractor trailer at 6 mpg does not pay nearly enough in fuel taxes for the equivalent wear caused as an 3,000 pound minivan at 18 mpg.
Ive lived in NC for almost 20 yrs and one thing I know for sure...folks in NC do not ever get upset with taxes...ever!
This is an outrage but it will happen.
If they put a GPS in everyone’s car to see where they have traveled, what’s to stop them from taxing sex and putting monitors in everyone’s bedrooms? This idea is totalitarian in the extreme, and will deservedly spawn GPS jammers and other such fixes.
Great! Then just tax the big-rigs, and leave passenger cars out of it. Is it really true that minivans get only three times the milage of big rigs?
This proposal would be a very regressive form of taxation. Imagine the impact on folks who cannot afford to live close to where they work and are forced to drive significant distances to their jobs. I hope the tax payers also demand an accounting of where the $54 million currently being collected is being spent.
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