Posted on 10/05/2010 11:01:36 AM PDT by Willie Green
A tax on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was shot down last year by President Obama. But a new study by respected transportation experts – and a successful pilot program in Oregon – should revive the idea.
As more Americans buy hybrid or electric cars, drivers in traditional gas-only vehicles are bound to start asking: Why should I still be paying more in fuel taxes? Don’t we all use the highways?
Indeed, the gas tax is quickly becoming an unjust way to finance the costs of roads and bridges. All vehicles, whether they be a Hummer or a Prius, use the same infrastructure, which needs to be built and maintained regardless of a car’s fuel type.
There is an alternative, one that is fair, already proven, and, based on a new study by some 80 experts, the best way to start financing surface transportation.
It is a pay-as-you-go fee system based simply on distance, or a tax on “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT). The idea is the centerpiece recommendation of the study, released Monday, called “Well Within Reach: America’s New Transportation Agenda.” The report is based on a recent three-day conference of experts at the University of Virginia.
Oregon already tested a VMT system in 2006-07, using 299 volunteer motorists. The pilot program equipped their vehicles with devices that allowed gas stations to track their mileage during each fill-up. More than 90 percent of the participants said they would agree to use it in lieu of the gas tax, and the state’s governor is now seeking $10 million to expand the program.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
First, the big lie in the story:
The nation’s 50-year-old federal highway system needs it – as tragically seen in the 2007 collapse of an eight-lane bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 people.
No facts in evidence for this statement. The real causes were (1) poor road project spending priorities, (2)lax inspection standards, (3)lax priorities given to inspection results, NOT lack of funds.
Second, the type of program tried in Oregon would not obtain any taxes from any vehicles that do not need to go to "fuel stations". What about all the "tax free" miles obtained by an all electric vehicle that is only recharged at the owners residence??
The real motive of the Oregon project was to tax more greatly the fuel purchased for fossil fuel vehicles that get lower miles-per-gallon than their peers.
However; There is another way to "equalize" the "fuel taxes" between drivers of vehicles using fossil fuel products and drivers of vehicles that use "alternative" fuels.
First, fuel taxes now do not discriminate between vehicles that achieve a different average number of miles per gallon of fuel. But, the calculations for fuel taxes do make some assumptions about total vehicle miles driven over the roads served by a particular fuel tax, against an overall average miles-per-gallon of the vehicles using that fuel, to estimate how much revenue a fuel tax might produce. {wait, read on]
Equivalents to that measurement are possible for each and every type of vehicle "fuel" (electricity for recharging, batteries, useful life of a solar-panel-array, etc.) and taxes on each of the alternative energy sources can be applied on a basis that uses the energy equivalent of each source, for each additional use and or purchase of an "alternative" transportation fuel. [wait, read on]
Power companies could require homeowners to purchase and install a mini-meter and special smart-outlet used at the home for recharging vehicle batteries, co-designed with the vehicle manufactures so that only such outlets will connect to their vehicles recharging line-cable; and through which power companies can perform the state's "fuel tax" collections through such meters; adding the taxes to the owners monthly electric bill. "Public outlets" for vehicle recharging purposes can include the taxes in the cost of their use.[wait, read on]
The "fuel taxes" for batteries-as-fuel-source and solar panels would probably impose the largest immediate tax on their purchase due to the number of miles of their useful life expectancy (or useful life before "recharge"). [wait read on]
For example, a single battery-as-fuel-source would obtain a tax upon purchase (added separately with the initial purchase as "installed equipment") that was the equivalent of the "per gallon" fuel tax that corresponds to the energy equivalent supplied by the battery: ([x] liquid dispersed fuels have a tax per gallon, {y] a gallon of fuel represents an average number of miles it can obtain, [Z] a battery has an expected average number of miles it can be used before needing recharge, so [Z] divided by [y] times [x] would produce a tax equivalent to the liquid fuels tax taken at the pump. [wait, read on]
"Fuel Taxes" for solar panels for vehicles would work the same way. If a vehicle's solar array was potent enough for all of a vehicle's transportation fuel, they would obtain the largest immediate tax upon purchase, because of the "total useful miles" the panels would have before replacement. [wait. read on]
Oh, too bad, then the ACTUAL costs of these "alternative" fuels - with their "fuel taxes" included, will be so much higher than "fossil" fuels that they will never obtain their politically motivated "consumer demand".
[NOW]
But, we could avoid all such measures and simply turn all roads into "toll roads"; with RID chips installed in every vehicle, cables laid in every road bed and fees assessed while the vehicle passes over the road (already done in Hong Kong), with monthly bills arriving from the owners/governing authorities of the roads you travel(ed) over; and the same system can collect, via debit/credit cards, tolls for any specific toll roads used.
No matter what CAN BE DONE; at the moment it seems that many "alternative fuel" vehicle modes are starting up without a system in place for them to share in the "fuel taxes" that support the roads they are using.
"Fossil fuel" vehicle owners should demand such vehicles be banned where-ever equivalent "fuel taxes" are not imposed on "alternative fuel" vehicles.
Yep. “Approval” will be for everything we do and say. It’s about time we exercised the 2nd option. I am tired of pleading any more.
Or better yet...
when will you pay that tax?
Upon plate renewal? So we pay the taxes and fee for the plates, if you live where I do your e-check is added into the cost of your plates for emissions, and now my tax by the mile?
Average is 15,000ish miles. How much is the tax?
““A fee of just one penny per mile would equal the revenue currently collected by the fuel tax,” the report states. “A fee of two cents per mile would generate the revenue necessary to support an appropriate level of investment over the long term.”
15,000 x .02= $300 per year, plus plates and e-check.
Now, this is the kicker line ...
“Such changes call for phasing out the gas tax and starting a new financing system that is still based on the concept of users paying for this government service.”
Ain’t that why I pay state taxes already?
It takes the money collected for roads to GO TO ROADS.
One of my sons is a long hauler - roll into California or Illinois or PA or other long time democrat run states and you need a kidney belt to ride the roads - cross the line into long time Republican states and ride like a cream puff.
There needs to be watch dogs to keep of where track of the money really goes.
The last three vehicles I owned that had a computer calculating my MPG were off by more than 10% of actual use when I calculated the use myself.
This is a GREAT idea! It shifts the tax burden from people with SUVs, high-performance sports cars and Trucks to people with Priuses and civics.
45 x 365 = 16425 miles per year
16425 x 0.2 = 328.50 tax
18.4 x 365 = 6716 tax
???
The same way they keep track of truckers - wait until they also track you, like they do 18-wheelers from square foot to square foot...
So that's why trains in the US are so safe, even without any security. No people!!!
This will be fun when the watermelon lefties figure out that they will be paying the same tax per mile in their tiny Prius as an evil Republican driving a Cadillac Escalade SUV.
“So that’s why trains in the US are so safe, even without any security. No people!!!”
Well, except for Amtrak... :-)
Your decimal is in the wrong place. $0.184 x 365 = $67.16.
Actually, Maine roads are damn good - particularly considering the harsh winter.
Now Calif, Illinois, PA and other LONG TERM democrat run states are kidney-belt roads.
long time or intermittent republican run states - good roads....
so says my long hauler son who criss crosses the country every week
“That’s the idea. Ray TheHood wants us all out of our cars.”
They also want to dis-incentivize people from living in the suburbs and rural areas. More people in the big cities means more control over people, tax revenues, more Dems in office though vote fraud, etc...
I-80 from the NV line through Sacramento is a frickin' earthquake simulator.
Nobody cares what a self-promoting fraud like you thinks.
Thanks...
It didn’t look correct hence the ???
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