Posted on 11/18/2004 12:13:25 AM PST by GOPXtreme20
Highway Robbery
The new DMV director has proposed scrapping California's current fuel tax and instead substituting a tax based on the miles you drive.
A bit of background: California's highways have traditionally been funded by fuel taxes - principally an 18-cent per gallon excise tax and a sales tax that averages 7.9 percent. It is simple and efficient to collect and provides a rough approximation of proportional use: the heavier the vehicle or the more it is used, the more fuel it uses and the more tax it pays. This system also provides a natural discount to the most fuel-efficient cars.
Proponents of a mileage tax point to an inflation-adjusted decline in the gasoline excise tax, but they ignore the dramatic increase in the sales tax on fuel produced by skyrocketing oil prices.
In fact, Californians currently pay the 4th highest tax per gallon of gasoline in the country. And yet we recently ranked at the very bottom of a nationwide survey of both highway conditions and per capita spending for highways. The problem is that existing taxes paid by highway users have not been used for our highways. In the last two years, $2 billion of our sales taxes on gasoline have been raided for purposes unrelated to our highways - including $1.1 billion in the current year.
So the first question is, what makes them think the mileage tax won't suffer the same fate?
Some other flaws:
Unless you are going to apply endless bureaucratic formulae to adjust for vehicle weight and fuel efficiency, the frugal hybrid driver will be paying the same as the indulgent SUV owner.
. It gives out of state travelers a free ride on California roads, and, if mileage is based on odometer readings, it would tax Californians even when they're traveling out of state.
. It is highly invasive. One proposal is to place GPS tracking devices in every car, requiring up-close and personal snooping of how and where Californians drive.
The real agenda is to establish the means and the precedent to track the individual driving routes of individual motorists. And the only reason for doing this is to penalize them financially for trying to get to work on time.
Stupid proposal. It can't be easily and fairly administered and it smacks of Big Brother. We already have too much government involvement in our day to day lives. The last thing we need is the government sticking it to us for getting to work, to the store or to our vacation get away on time.
Tom makes too much sense for Sacramento. They hate his kind of REBEL LOGIC up there.
If we drive in reverse do we get rebates?
Lest we forget, the influx of tax generation rhetoric is nothing but a budget mask to stifle the outcry from the public stating "QUIT SPENDING SO MUCH!"
That's feasible, for anymore if one "works" in reverse they get rebates!
Tom McClintock for Governor 2006
What an incredibly stupid proposal. Therefore, just watch it become the next "big idea" and then we'll have to work to defeat it. Good grief.
>Tom makes too much sense for Sacramento. They hate his kind
>of REBEL LOGIC up there.
Tom McLintock
Brett Schundler
Pat Toomey
Great men who have not yet risen. Take any 2 and you have an outstanding, articulate presidential ticket for 2008. I'm peeved at all of the Rudy/Dr. Rice talk for 2008.
Only Tom could take a home run pitch and fail to hit it to the grass in front of home plate.
Nowhere does Tom demand that the state start spending the gas tax on building new roads. Nowhere does Tom lament the billions of dollars being spent on five mile stretches of subways to nowhere.
It is nice of Tom to acknowledge what everyone else knows, but why not step up to the plate and demand that the state recognize that mass transit will NEVER EVER meet the needs of southern Californians, when it comes to getting to work, or for that matter, anything else.
We need new highways right now, this very minute, and nobody is even hinting at the idea we're going to build them.
Even the starting lineup on our side can't get it's act together.
McClintock sanity ping.
BTW, it should be noted that this new Transportation Secretary for the state was appointed by Schwarzenegger. No there's something he should get the lead weight medal award for.
Yep. We need new freeways and we need to upgrade existing ones. For the Left, that's a non-starter what with their being in hock to the enviro wackos. Where's our side on the dealing with the crisis in California's aging infrastructure?
It's a laugh a minute out here.!
Well it's only a guess, but I'd say they're probably busy trying to figure out how to facilitate another ten to thirty million visitors from the south to join us on our current disintigrating freeways. First things first you know.
Finally something Arnold & McClintock agree on. Arnold DOES NOT support this proposal.
Pssst !
He's dead, Jim.
Yes, he does always have that "cross-eyed" look about him. Twenty-Two years in the CA legislature. What has he accomplished? What is *his* solution? Oh, right. He wants to do away with MTA entirely in Los Angeles and use those "savings" to expand the 101. Genius?
McClintock bump to the top
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.