All that encouragement to buy fuel-efficient vehicles leads to this! I guess it is a variant of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Good point!
It's a a lot like taxing cigarettes a lot to get people to quit smoking. Sometimes they get what they ask for and screw themselves out of revenue and need to find new ways to make it up.
>>test program uses a global positioning system to track miles driven, <<
Libs love to talk about civil rights, but only the civil rights that are in fashion. Privacy is a basic civil right, as is the right to travel. Any time an activity is taxed, government must be allowed to collect records and audit those records and activities to assure itself of compliance.
Just as the income tax destroyed financial privacy, the milage tax will destroy the privacy of travel.
This monster must be slain before the State can give birth to it.
I can recall many years ago when San Diego Gas & Electric raised electric rates so high that few people decorated their homes at Christmas. The reduction in usage (revenue) was so significant that the California PUC granted them another rate increase to guarantee their profits on their capital base.
It was many years before people decided the rates were never going to drop again and they sorely missed the Christmas decorations. It never has returned with the fervor that I remembered prior to 1973.
This is the state that pushed for fuel-efficient cars until they found out that it cost them in gas taxes.