Posted on 05/05/2011 5:42:55 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Obama floats plan to tax cars by the mile By Pete Kasperowicz - 05/05/11 07:45 AM ET
The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.
The plan is a part of the administration's "Transportation Opportunities Act," an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.
This follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.
Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.
The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues.
Obama's proposal seems to follow up on that idea in section 2218 of the draft bill. That section would create, within the Federal Highway Administration, a Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office. It would be tasked with creating a "study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems."
The administration seems to be aware of the need to prepare the public for what would likely be a controversial change to the way highway funds are collected. For example, the office is called on to serve a public relations function, as the draft says it should "increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches."
The draft bill says the "study framework" for the project and a public awareness communications plan should be established within two years of creating the office, and that field tests should begin within four years.
The office would be required to consider four factors in field trials: the capability of states to enforce payment, the reliability of technology, administrative costs, and "user acceptance." The draft does not specify where field trials should begin.
The new office would be funded a total of $200 million through FY 2017 for the project.
The idea is to recruit real people to run. Truly grass-roots effort.
This has been out there since Jan. 2009 as possible... A mileage gas tax would be just what obama would support....limiting peoples mobility is part and parcel of destroying a country...so this would suite his agenda completely. Even if there is flack from the public, it hasn't made a difference in the Obama agenda's march....If he determines to impliment this he'll just do it and we can like it or not...no skin offf his nose...and if any think he's affected by any US citizen opinion or how they are affected, then they are not facing reality.
This author has a play by play look at what we could expect from the way government works and runs...at that time...amazingly he has called it right every step just as we see it developing today, with only slight variations due to the times.
The gov. collapse of the banking system and shoring it up...the move to change Insurance and Medical programs they will go after...401k’s etc which they will go after...it's all there in his book. Remarkable accuracy.
For states which require inspections they will make this part of that....have one installed or you won’t pass.
Now that's an understatement! Yep...and amazingly we sit for it....these next months are going to be brutal on the American people as Obama continues to push thru all that he desire...I do not think there is anything that can stop him now...including mass protests or a rise of the American people armed and ready. He's had these years now to prepare for this eventuality and continues to get his ducks in a row IMO. He does not see the American people as a threat to him at all...thus he is bold and or plays whatever role he deems necessary to stall of the eventable.
It won't go through. But the mere thought of it is designed to enrage people. You think these "laws" are about what they claim to be about?
Never.
Is there NO bottom to both their stupidity AND their
tone-deafness???
do they really think this will be acceptable to ANYONE,
on top of EVERYTHING else?
BOHICA for the Brave New World of the Obama Nation.
And even though this legislation will never see the light of day, they think nothing of spending BIG BUCKS to do a study of its feasibility.
Other way around, I'll warrant -- Obama's hiding behind a senator from a Western State, who is strong enough in his home State to take the stink of being said to have fathered this proposal.
Call it "stink farm-out".
Traffic congestion .... what's a New World Ordering, Bilderberg-Agenda-Writing, Maybach-conveyed multibillionaire to do?
Tell Obama to "sweep all the little boys off the street".
What this world needs is just enough little people to keep the NWO'ers happy and pampered.
Fire up the ovens!!
In Houston the electric company is outfitting every house so they can cut your voltage at will, sandbag your a/c and lights so they can "save electricity" ..... your electric bill, however, will not be "tuned" to compensate. You pay full freight, always. It's a principle, you see.
Okay, so that accounts for why Sen. Conrad's name is on the proposal.
That explained, do you have any doubt whose idea it is? You know it came from The One's kitchen cabinet of Alinskyite Communists and Cloward-Piven masterminds.
LOL-- well, then, your bedroom will have to be gay-friendly, won't it?
The difference is that it is an additional tax. Above and beyond the Federal Gasoline Excise tax.”””
This is a particularly hard attack on the western half of the USA.
Distances out here are much longer & towns are further apart than east of the Mississippi. I go 48 miles round trip just to the grocery store. 12 miles rount trip to the post office.
Unfair, to say the least.
The House should defund this project immediately. This is a total waste of tax money and an outrageous plan to infringe on personal liberty. A tax per mile will never pass in congress, so this whole study is a waste of money and is just adding to the federal debt load. The liberals are now in favor of cutting the federal deficit, so let's start by cancelling this outrageous project.
[Flint] Let's see if we can predict who won't have to pay. Union members, Government employees, Anyone who makes less than $15,000 a year and drives a Cadillac or Escort....
[just me] Drive tax: all union workers, government workers, welfare recipients will be exempt...
Everybody on the list wins a kewpie doll, for coming ever-so-close to the real answer.
It's a race tax, specifically a "white tax". The idea has been around forever -- 40 years and more -- and it's related to the reparations idea.
When New Orleans elected its first black mayor in the mid-70's, Ernest "Dutch" Morial (daddy of the corrupt Marc Morial, also mayor later on), he sat down with his political cronies and ran out a long list of "white tax" proposals: real-estate surcharges on houses and even churches bigger than "so big" (i.e., they had white people in them), employment taxes exacted at the workplace, and so on. There were about a dozen proposals on the list, some of them obvious non-starters.
The idea that survived was an ad-valorem surcharge on automobiles driven in the City of New Orleans, which would have to have a special license plate tag (jurisdictions in e.g. Virginia were already doing this) to show payment. The idea was, this was the way to tax white commuters who might live as far away as Lumberton, Mississippi, who were driving in to work in the city.
That is the real genesis of this idea, barfed up by Obama's kitchen cabinet from the ancient storehouse of "fooling Mr. Charlie" legacy japes and exploits. The peg is revenue, the occasion is exigency (real or concocted), but the motive is racial animus.
It’s actually far more stupid than you can imagine (you lucky guy). The intent is to create a tax that levies a higher rate for larger, but lighter, and newer, more fuel efficient vehicles.
The Obamistas hate Indians. That was one of the first things the evil Sebelius person was going to do with Obama care ~ force reservation Indians to open up their clinics and any hospitals to people from large cities ~ I gather the view is better in the reservations or something.
We know that old cow hates Indians.
I hear you. This is a hard, nasty attack on the more conservative and more rural areas of the US in the West, the Great Plains, and the South. I’m out here in west, in the wide open spaces, and sometimes I have to drive a 90-mile round trip to see a sporting event or a concert in the nearest big city. These liberals in Washington have no idea how far apart everything is once you cross the Appalachian mountains. And they don’t care how far we have to drive because they’re crazy nuts who think cars and trucks are “destructive”, and they want to pack us in close together in compressed little western cities where we all have to ride public transportation.
They don’t get it. I’m out here in the wide open spaces precisely because I like the scenery and geography out here, and I don’t like living in compressed crime-infested cities and I hate riding in packed mass transit systems that are also terrorism targets. If they ever try to put a GPS device in my vehicle I will break the thing immediately one way or another.
“And even though this legislation will never see the light of day, they think nothing of spending BIG BUCKS to do a study of its feasibility.”
Exactly. Boehner and McConnell should jump on this issue first thing Monday morning and call for the funding for this study to be removed from this bill. Legislation will never pass congress to track the mileage and location of privately owned vehicles, so why waste tax money on this worthless study?
My new fuel injected motorcycle has a non-standard port that only a special Honda diagnostic computer type can connect to... and you can’t buy one. They won’t sell it to anyone - period.
Motorcycles were not covered by OBD-II.
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