Posted on 04/15/2016 4:28:18 AM PDT by markomalley
The Illinois Senate is considering a bill that will tax drivers 1.5 cents per mile they drive, because of a loophole in the state’s current gas taxation law that excuses owners of electric cars, starting July 2017.
“If all the cars were electric, there would be no money for the roads,” Illinois State Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, told the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper. “The Prius owners are the reason we need this bill.”
The bill, which Cullerton is spearheading, said car owners or lessees can choose one of three ways by which the state will measure mileage. Two of those ways involve a device within the car, which will either track GPS location and stop measuring when the driver leaves public roads or monitor odometer readings. The third option is a flat tax, where a driver would pay $450 each year, the equivalent of driving 30,000 miles on the 1.5 cent tax, and not be monitored.
Illinois drivers are already plagued with the second-highest gas prices in the nation, due to heavy taxing at the city and state levels, so Cullerton’s bill will include a tax refund for drivers to ensure they aren’t double taxed.
The bill will also create the Illinois Road Improvement and Driver Enhancement Commission for the purpose of administering the conditions of the bill, and create an advisory board for the I-RIDE Commission. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, the chairman of the commission will receive an annual salary of $18,000 and the four other members will receive a salary of $15,000.
“The administration of such a large-scale tracking and monitoring system seems a behemoth task – with every possibility of going awry, considering the layers of bureaucracy that would be needed to administer such a program,” writes Hilary Gowins, of IPI, a research and educational organization aimed at promoting personal freedom and prosperity in Illinois.
10.4 million cars are registered in Illinois, and, due to the tremendous financial undertaking this bill promises, Republican state senators, such as Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine, have already expressed criticism at the current state of the bill.
“This one will probably require a thorough vetting,” Murphy told the Daily Herald.
I didn’t see it mentioned but can we assume that the gas tax at the pump will go away?
Horsemanure it is - exactly..
First off, the reason the legislature needs money is to buy votes from the teachers and public employees unions, to pay off votes already bought through unsustainable retirement plans, and to fund the usual graft, corruption and sweetheart deals that make this state an unlivable shithole.
The second problem is that both pols like Cullerton and the news sources that cover clowns like him are complete idiots. The Prius is NOT an electric car - it is a more-efficient gasoline-powered car that recovers energy (in a battery), but that energy is ENTIRELY generated by the combustion of petroleum. You don’t plug an f’n Prius into a socket.
I doubt if 1% of the cars in Illinois are electrics (we are as stupid as California in a lot of ways, but not that way - we do have actual winters). Prius’s have nothing to do with the state’s revenue problems. Tesla’s have nothing to do with the state’s revenue problems. The venal buttholes we put in office year after year have everything to do with the state’s revenue problems.
I don’t object to user fees to finance roads. I am agnostic on how best to collect user fees. The issue being raised here is that electric cars make the gasoline tax an inaccurate proxy. One might also make the equity argument that owners of electric cars, already heavily subsidized, shouldn’t be free riders on highway construction and maintenance.
Restriction of movement, concentration of the population into cities. Utopia can’t be far behind.
Self-correction - Prius apparently does come in a plug-in variant (but it is the case that most hybrids run off of gas exclusively).
If they brought back trucking regulations and parts of the old ICC where hauling operators were assigned operating rights to given roads which they pay fees to operate on. That would cover road maintainence and repair a lot of this demand for tax money paid by the 4 and 3 and 2 wheelers would be greatly reduced.
What happened to ICC was the this simple idea turned into a burgeoning bureacracy. And you had bureacrats assigning freight rates to given classifications of products which were not standardized but assigned variable tarrifs because of cost maintainence variations to various regions of the country.
The problem is affixing costs of maintainence and repair in a inflationary economy spurred on by such things as minimum wage. Which makes it almost impossible to tell an operator OK, it will cost you this much per ton to use this road. So they know what they much charge the shipper to haul their freight.
I don't like the random part. I would prefer to put their names in a drawing. First term politicians get a pass. Second term get their names put in once. Third term get their names put in 10 times, Fourth term 100 times, etc.
There is nothing wrong with civil service per se, rather the problem is when you make it a career.
Better yet Romanian Term limits.
I’ve heard this before. Chatting per mile is the next frontier for the United States. We are getting closer to handing over our psyche is to the government and they prove an allowance or stipend. Once everything is “free”, the government will give 50 dollars a month in play money to all Americans. Of course 100 dollars to illegals.
If you think about it, the gas tax is not an accurate proxy of how much driving people do, because some cars get much better gas mileage than others.
I figure there is no way to be completely “fair” with road taxes. If you drive more miles but have a smaller lighter car, which causes much less wear and tear on the roads, is it fair that you pay the same tax as someone with a heavy truck, who drives the same number of miles? Is it fair that you pay more in taxes if you have a gas guzzler car and use more gas??
There will never be anything completely fair and equitable about any taxation, in my opinion.
Tax the Prius owners
Taxes? What are they? Prius owners are expecting TAX CREDITS!
“The bill will also create the Illinois Road Improvement and Driver Enhancement Commission for the purpose of administering the conditions of the bill, and create an advisory board for the I-RIDE Commission. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, the chairman of the commission will receive an annual salary of $18,000 and the four other members will receive a salary of $15,000.”
The people of Illinois deserve this and many more taxes. They consistently vote in politicians that give away large sums of money, and I think it’s about time that we stop blaming the politicians, and start blaming the voters. Ultimately, it’s their fault.
...and it will be called, "Building Sustainable Communities."
How about freezing the retirements of union thugs to save money - just like the feds have essentially done to the retired military?
“Illinois is 100 billion in debt, they are desperate to find new revenue streams.”
But somehow never desperate to cut spending, are they?
Good luck to him....surrounded as he is in a sea of Illinois House and Senate demoncrat sharks.
Leni
We went from a 42 gallon tank Suburban to a 10 gallon tank Prius. Yeah, we are saving a ton of money on gas.
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