The argument that increased fuel economy leads to lower revenues doesn't, in my mind, justify the intrusion into the lives of individuals necessitated by a per-mile tax. The simple solution to this is if revenues are falling in real terms:
1. Innovate to reduce the costs in real terms of building and maintaining roads. We often make the error of thinking in a static way about government costs for services. In competitive industries, companies are forced to become ever-more efficient, as consumers will only grudgingly pay higher prices.
2. Where innovation and competitive pressure fail to reduce the real cost of these products and services, raise the tax across the board to make up the required revenue. Of course, this has the added effect of making it marginally more worthwhile to buy a more efficient vehicle, thus increasing the overall efficiency of the vehicle fleet in the United States. On the whole, that's probably a good thing.
To me, the worst solution is to provide a mechanism that makes it easier for the government to collect more revenue more readily, with less transparency, and in a way that creates another government enforcement mechanism similar in concept to what is needed to collect the individual income tax.
sitetest
Agree.