What's next, attaching a mileage counter to bicycles, strollers, roller blades/skates, walking shoes?
But this isn't right! Oregon is not punishing the SUV drivers!
If the SUV guy drives 100 miles and use 10 gallons of gas, let's say, and a guy drives his Honda Civic and uses 3 gallons, the Civic guy has the same tax as the SUV guy. The Honda guy gets his taxes raised.
From a liberal point of view, this does not make sense.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1576912/posts
AND HERE
[snip]
"You have to have a revenue-collection system in place to respond to that," says James Whitty, manager of the office of innovative partnerships and alternative funding for the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Whitty and others propose taxing you on how far you drive, not how much gas you use. There are other approaches being considered to supplement the gas tax in years to come, but the so-called mileage tax is gaining attention as the replacement that many say will eventually be needed.
Whitty believes that most cars eventually could be outfitted with a global positioning device and computer to determine miles traveled in a given state - information that would be used to determine the tax bill.
Rest of the story...HERE
It's the wave of the future.
Utterly asinine. Gas taxes are better from both an efficiency and environmental standpoint. And if they aren't producing enough revenue (which I doubt), then just raise them. The only conceivable "advantage" of a mileage tax is that the government gets to track your movement.
How about we ONLY charge hybrids this extra tax?
This is yet another success tax.
If you successfully have a vehicle that uses less gass you have to be penalized to protect the TAX REVENUE!
The politician who signs off on this should be shot out of office in a cannon.
Your car could easily be equipped with a camera to record your actions at all times. The future doesn't look too bright wrt personal privacy.
This is going the way of the BTU tax and going nowhere. First, it requires mods to all cars. Secondly, this system would have to charge a person only for incremental miles driven since last fill up while also not charging them if they drive outside Oregon. This would require an enormous amount of detail tracking per automobile. I don't even see how this is possible unless the system continously uploads miles driven to a computer and alerts the system that the car has left Oregon or has just entered Oregon.
A simpler solution for the politicians to just campaign for higher gas taxes. Tree huggers out there probably go for it.
For a state that is populated by tree huggers, it strikes me as curious that this "user fee" would actually level the playing field between hybrid vehicles and Chevy Suburbans. Who is the friggin idiot that came up with this one. The greenies (who generally love to tax stuff) must be freaking out over this one.
What about all the people traveling through Oregon to somewhere else. Will they be taxed also? The every encroaching government drives me up the wall. Considering moving to Tonga or the South Pacific once I make enough money. The US is on a collision course with a meltdown of epic proportions.
What do you expect from a bunch of tree-huggers?
this idea has been kicking around in Utopian-kook think tanks for several years now....a by-product of the opinions that a) the world is going to run out of petroleum soon, so how will we finance our big heping govt. if we can no longer tax it? and b) let's create a dis-incentive for people to move out to the suburbs and drive more miles.
Sounds like Oregonians are going to be the lab-rats for this. Original plans call for mandatory GPS monitoring of all vehicles to get the mileage totals right, so get ready for total surveillance out there!
Could the mileage tax be a back door entrance for Koyoto?
"Oregon Freepers how are the people of Oregon reacting to this?"
We are not pleased.
California, and I think other states, are studying this as well.
It took me a while, but I think I figured out what this is all about.
First of all, let's dispense with the absurd claim that the problem is people buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, thus reducing fuel tax revenues. Cars that get better fuel economy weigh less, and thus result in less wear and tear on the roads. Plus, they could simply raise the fuel tax if there isn't enough coming in. It must be something else, then.
They are afraid of the impact of alternative fuels, especially those which can be produced at home.
There are a number of people here running biodiesel and waste vegetable oil, many of whom are probably not paying road tax. If an idea like that catches on, even if most people can't be bothered with the hassle, it sends a message that this tax can be evaded, and the state can't stand for that.
If you drive a car I'll tax the street cuz I'm the taxman. Yaaaah I'm the taxmaaaan!
Oregon?.... (Eddie Murphy laugh)...
sounds counter productive to me. Hope they crash and burn - the government shills, not the drivers
This article is from May 2005....what were the results from Oregon's "tests"?