Posted on 01/04/2013 7:22:55 PM PST by Libloather
PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) - Fuel-efficient cars are designed to save people money on gas, but those who drive them could soon start paying a mileage tax.
The government has been collecting taxes at the pump to pay for building and fixing roads for years, but drivers of electric cars avoid the gas tax because they don't fuel up.
State legislators are looking at adding a tax for cars that get at least 55 miles per gallon, with the money going toward state roads. Some Portland residents say area roads could use the help.
(Excerpt) Read more at kptv.com ...
Doesn't that interfere with their "green" social engineering?
How do they know how far you’ve gone? Are we talking more toll booths or tracking devices? If I know government, they’re working on the latter.
GAH! When are these people going to stop?! We are getting bad ideas from the Leftist control freaks at the rate of about ten per hour.
I’m sure the loons in Portland and Eugene will be more than happy to pay. That’s what all the libs and rinos advocate for after all.
We are now dealing with addict behavior
Doesn’t matter consequences or hypocracy just more and more tax revenue to feed their addiction
I love that idea, we should raise taxes on all green products like solar panels too
Here in Maryland if you put solar panels on your house the taxpayers pay for half of them, and the other consumers of electric who don’t have them pay for the electric you need that the panels dont produce like at night by mandate.
And once that’s in place, they’ll simply add a five-word clause and amend the statute to include gasoline-powered vehicles.
The devices are available off the shelf today. Made right here in Georgia, USA.
Huge lobbying effort by the company for this very thing. They are already OEM black box and gps suppliers for several European car makers. Europe hasn’t started the per mile tax thing.......yet.
My deepest sympathies.
Going to start a new black market I see. These rats are sure smart!
So they tell us to drive less or more efficiently and we do. Now they complain about lower tax revs???
What next? Telling us to smoke again because they are collecting lower tobacco tax revs?
Genius. Pure genius.
Devices may be available, but when I say working on it I more mean getting around the Fourth amendment. Or does that one count anymore?
By the way, I assume even if the devices are installed at the factory it’ll be too easy for drivers to interfere with them. Traffic cameras don’t seem up to the job. I imagine roaming robot spy planes.
[Less than 1,000 of Oregon's 3.2 million passenger vehicles are currently plug-in hybrid or electric. By 2021, however, the number is expected to spike to 75,000, said Whitty.]
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/04/oregons_electric_car_owners_sh.html
It is truly stupid. My power company can buy clean and reliable power anytime they need to for about 4 cents per kWh. Buying solar from a homeowner costs them retail price, about 12 cents, it’s unreliable and not available when it is actually needed (evening hours).
My experiences here turned me against uncontrolled Housing development,
Howard county SW of Balt used to be white and very conservative Republican as late as say ~2000. The ever increasing gov spending around DC with unrestrained housing development and massive immigration Balkan-nized the county and turned it solid Dem, taxes and regulations followed. And ironically wiping out millions of trees in the process they traded that for enslaving us in environmental regulations and taxes.
Now it is hopeless.
And you obviously know some about what happened at the state level.
A mileage tax is a great idea, as long as they eliminate the gasoline tax.
When our own started "free" recycling, the amount of revenue the trash company collected dropped a huge amount. People recycled everything they could. Didn't take long before rates for the now-puny garbage cans shot up to compensate.
Government is chock-full of marketing geniuses who know all about human behavior and incentives.
The database is being assembled.
In Pennsylvania drivers are requested to submit the odomoter reading when renewing tags (only for mail-in at this point, not through the DOT on-line services) and safety inspection mechanics record the odometer onto a paper ledger.
In counties where emission inspection is required the odometer reading is digitally transmitted to the DOT as part of the testing process.
Grab your ankles—it’s coming!
You may have missed the point.
Overall they use MORE than the solar energy they generate even if they sell some during peak summer daylight hours.
So they have to net buy some electric off the grid.
But the state mandates that the power company gives the solar panel owners $$$ so they pay zero for it.
You know where the companies get the $$. The goal is to use our $$$ to lure us into buying them, O Malley has 2016 plans.
Nothing more than the law of unintended consequences at work. First you listen to long nose busybodies concerned with “environmental destruction” by us humans, and laws are changed because they demand it, and what do you know, ten years later when all the vehicles get more reasonable fuel mileage, states start to notice that their fuel tax revenue has taken a pretty big hit. Of course no one factored in an economy on the fritz, people driving less, and the better fuel economy.
If I read the tea leaves correctly, all states have started to notice, and so the move to charge for travel on the highways, rather than the arbitrary gasoline tax. Going to be a tough sell I think, but then I’ve been surprised many times of late.
Public policy lesson 101:
Most highway construction and maintenance funding comes from “liquid fuels taxes”.
If vehicles consume less liquid fuels there is less revenue, but their useage/damage does not decrease.
The money must be made up some way, some how.
Driving a big azz vehicle, I don’t want to “subsidize” the Prius fleet. Note that most Priuses sport Ø bumper stickers—so they are “takers” very content with that status quo.
When mileage based road taxes were first proposed in my state I protested to my assemblyman that many of my neighbors live back 1/4 to 1/2 mile or longer private lanes; therefore much of their annual mileage is on their own private property.
He responeded—correctly—that with liquid fuels taxation they are being taxed on fuel that will never benefit them directly. Same difference.
Fuel-efficient cars are designed to save people money on gas, but those who drive them could soon start paying a mileage tax. The government has been collecting taxes at the pump to pay for building and fixing roads for years, but drivers of electric cars avoid the gas tax because they don't fuel up. State legislators are looking at adding a tax for cars that get at least 55 miles per gallon, with the money going toward state roads.So, Oregon, huh? I don't suppose anyone at this "news" source knows the party affiliation of this great idea?!?
Any scheme that involves GPS trackers to record mileage will not be reliable but will destroy privacy of travel.
They'll tax you for breathing second/third/fourth hand smoke.
Then they'll charge an import tax because sensors near your home measured pollutants that originated in factories in China.
i know they use more, on a cloudy day in particular they probably use 90 or 95% net power from the grid. But if they are truly paying zero for their electric bill as you say, then they are getting 90% free power on those cloudy days. That is beyond ridiculous, it is criminal, mostly because I know the company that leases the systems is cleaning up on subsidies and profit.
This looks like one of those rare liberals screwing liberals occasions where its just fun to watch.
Just wait until they use the tracking devices to issue you end of the year speeding tickets.
My neighbor says he uses more power NET than he generates but BGE pays him $3K a year just for having solar panels.
Criminal??? Martin O Malley.
Wow... you are in favor of a tax where your every move is taxed? Talk about big brother interfering in your life. You must be kidding?
Pay by the mile is a reality on “express” toll lanes on several Atlanta interstates. They are using transponders right now, and compliance doesn’t seem to be an issue. Billing is automatic to your credit card.
The statewide thing will be a combo GPS and transponder system that periodically reports miles driven since the last data collection point.
I am not in this field, but am good friends with someone who is.
Sucks doesn’t it, bastards try that crap in Texas will have to have a team of state workers (convicts) walking the ditches looking for electronic tracking devices. In west Texas they will have to fund state workers (convicts) to scrape horse crap off the roads. We really don’t take well to Feds and their rules.
“or the water from your own well”
I live in Washington state. There is presently an effort to install meters on our privately owned water wells.... and charge me for my own water.
I paid to put the well in. I have lived at this property for 30 years and now these communists want to charge me for my own damn water.
It’s never going to stop....
And will they pay to replace it if it goes dry?
BWHAHAHAHAHA
I posted the same comment on another thread about a minute ago. The ONLY thing that is under our complete control is how much of our money we give to grow the beast. Everything else requires others to agree, allow, participate, lead, etc. There are many ways to legally reduce how much goes to these crooks.
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
T.E.A.
I live in cal where the state legislature is only being outdone by the Feds.
We pay no income tax with our deductions.
However this year “we” voted for numerous tax increases. Trying to get those down. Unfortunately most in cal don’t share your thinking.
I don’t have a problem with this at all, on ALL vehicles including government vehicles, so long as it is absolutely impossible to acquire time/location information from those boxes. The gas taxes were supposed to cover road building, repair, and so on, and alternative fuel vehicles are getting a free ride. So, require the boxes, and eliminate the gasoline taxes.
LIKE, THAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN...!
We all know what the three biggest lies are. But...there is a fourth...a government “temporary tax” or “adjustment”.
Ask anyone from the Chicago area about the toll roads in the Chicago area, that were going to be “paid off” many years ago...now, they will be paid off just a few days short of the maximum entropy of the Universe.
This starts like all the other new taxes by taxing a small constituentcy and then balloons to ensnare the rest of the public in something that will give the government power to monitor your movements and further, will hit people entrepreneurs who make their livings in cars or trucks with a huge economic bite!!!
This will kill a whole bunch of GANG-GREEN birds with just one gall stone!!!
It's also a continuation of the wretched "War on the West" since we don't wish to crowd into urban compaction with miserable mass transit, walking commutes in deep blue cities and as they put it... "getting America back on it's feet!"
CA is already trying to make it a reality because they are in a free-fall brought on by MonuMental GovernMental EnvironMental squandering of money!!!
Yes, they've been angling at metering and taxing our private wells here in CA, as well. They've grown fiendish, I tell ya!!!
A mileage tax is a tax levied for road usage. It would be the closest thing we have to a tax that actually charges users for the wear-and-tear on roads they are directly responsible for. The major problem with this kind of scheme is administrative expenses. Which is why an unfair flat tax regardless of mileage on electric vehicles is likely to be the "solution".
I don’t think they are in any way serious about “Global Warming”. The carbon tax is simply another excuse to tax, and now the per mile tax is to grab those who evade that tax.
Actually we already are taxed on our use of the roads via gasoline taxes... which are pretty much exorbitant and never are used to repair roads. Mileage taxes begin to invade privacy by collecting individual data... erodes liberty. Not a conservative solution at all. Again.. Wow... I hope you are kidding.
Yes!!! a billion dollar tax on those who sponsor more taxes or life in jail for thier familes
would you tax the electric vehicles at the charging station, like at the gas pump?
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