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 ...
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 this 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.
I’ve got an idea!
If you have less taxes coming in to fill the state/federal coffers, SPEND LESS.
Imagine that!
Ha! Like that would happen. If you believe that a mileage tax would replace a gas tax and not be in addition to it, I have done vacation property in Chernobyl for you. Democrats would have a collective cow at any mention of eliminating any gas tax. Even though it's paid by consumers, they would spin it as a "payoff to the oil companies".
Ha! Like that would happen. If you believe that a mileage tax would replace a gas tax and not be in addition to it, I have done vacation property in Chernobyl for you. Democrats would have a collective cow at any mention of eliminating any gas tax. Even though it's paid by consumers, they would spin it as a "payoff to the oil companies".
Line breaks and paragraphs want to be your friends.
I don't however think it has a chance. The envirowacko lobby is too powerful. This would reduce the advantages of hybrids, and make E85 cost prohibitive. It only barely manages being competitive due to a 51 cent per gallon tax credit on the ethanol used in the fuel. If the gas tax goes away, that tax credit will disappear as well.
Suddenly alternative fuels and hybrids have to come closer to competing on their actual merits with less subsidies.
It may also reduce the incentive of buying a fuel efficient car a bit as well, though taking vehicle weight into account in the tax may offset that.
BS...the truth is that gasoline generated revenues are going down because people are heeding the government's wishes and consuming less of it. The law of unintended consequences is biting them right in the ass. Now we get this pablum that proposes a new tax and has the gall to claim that drivers are asking for it. What a crock.
Concurring bump. Hiya, Carry.
Our poster mtbrandon49 above had the right idea, Willie. Tax bicycles and train riders -- and no sparing the gouge and playing favorites, either. Score them deeply! Walkers and hikers, too! And roller-skaters! Annual taxes on roller skates and walking shoes!
"Oh, snap!" said Willie.
Remove the taxes first then we can “talk”. I do not trust this. I believe they want GPS tracking of all cars. Plus, if I own a car do I then have to allow the government to “retrofit” it. If not, how will this tax be collected. I say no. I think we we should go to a national sales tax instead of all other taxes anyway.
Well, it probably depends on the state. Many highway departments are notoriously corrupt, and waste money by the bucketfull. Maine and Massachusetts are two that I know of, and I’m sure there are more.
Some corruption is inevitable. But we don’t need massive corruption.
Only if the imposition of gas taxes are prohibited under penalty of death.
Ok...take the money from the $123,000,000,000,000 pot of money that is wasted on everything but fixing the roads and fix the damn roads, just stay the hell out of my pockets.
And just how, exactly, are the light rail projects “hair brained”? Are they viable in all markets? No. Are they useful in many? Absolutely.
How hypocritical! The government forces us to buy high mileage cars that are ill suited to our needs and then laments that we are now using too little gasoline to fund their highway taxes.
Seems we have already experienced this with the decreasing revenues from cigarette taxes.
Hmmmmmmm... people are smoking less...egads!! our tax revenues are down..we need to raise more money!! Let's impose 'fees' on something...anything!!
They should have left it in place to finance the soon-to-come war against Mexicans....
However, on that tax you say they repealed; I believe it was coupled with an increase in the federal excise tax, AND an increase in all phone network fees.
They’d better forget about this RIGHT NOW!!
*ALL* candidates for office, regardless of party or office, should be put on notice that *ANY* vote for *ANY* new tax will guarantee that we will vigorously work to *UNSEAT* them in the next election!
The only tax legisltation I will abide at this point must consist of *REPEALS*!!
OMG, OMG
I started with them, then the longer I typed, I started forgetting them and then didn’t do a “preview”. I really am sorry, to us all.
No thanks.. everyone knows this is NOT about taxing miles but adding yet another way to get us out of our cars AND give the govt yet another way to track us.
Ill pass.
Bonds are not a source of funding, they’re a source of financing.
All the money produced by bond sales, plus interest, has to be paid back by taxes and user fees.
The idiot mayor of Boise wants light rail in downtown Boise. Downtown Boise is all of 2 miles wide, if that. Talk about a waste of $$!
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