Posted on 01/02/2003 3:29:09 AM PST by kattracks
CNSNews.com) - If a proposal by an Oregon State task force becomes law, the government would be able to use satellite equipment to keep track of each driver's mileage and tax that driver accordingly in order to pay for road repairs.
Even the state administrator who proposed the plan thinks citizens "should be concerned" about the possibility of civil liberties violations. And Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy at the free market Cato Institute told CNSNews.com , "I think it's nutty and I don't think it's ever going to happen."
"I don't think Americans are ready to be subjected to that type of civil liberties intrusion," Edwards explained, "where government tracks them around wherever they drive."
Edwards believes the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) mileage-tracking proposal is the result of overzealous government bureaucrats.
"This is an example of economists gone wild," Edwards said. "Economists often think of these schemes that seem efficient on paper, but they don't think about the real world and the civil liberties aspect of things."
Jim Whitty, administrator of Oregon's Road User Fee Task Force, in an exclusive interview with CNSNews.com , called the GPS mileage tracking tax proposal necessary because "it costs a certain amount to drive on the road per vehicle and people ought to pay their fair share of their usage."
Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and the state legislature set up the Road User Fee Task Force in November 2001 to explore methods of financing transportation costs.
Noting that gas taxes are unfair because of the large differences in the fuel economy of automobiles, Whitty and the task force explored alternative taxing methods to ensure equity among drivers. Seventy-percent of Oregon's road maintenance revenues currently come from federal and state gas taxes.
Commission members rejected the idea of using automobile odometer readings to track mileage because they figured some people would accumulate out-of-state mileage. The idea of raising the existing gasoline tax was also turned down because with automobiles becoming so fuel efficient, gas tax revenues are projected to dry up.
"If everybody had high mileage cars, our road system would fall apart" from lack of revenue, Whitty said.
'Vehicle Miles Traveled Fee'
The solution seemed clear to Whitty.
"You go to technology and you look and say we can calculate mileage electronically, so it can be paid electronically ... That is where the GPS device came in," Whitty said.
Whitty envisions a system that would either send auto owners a monthly bill for their miles or set up gas stations so they could read the GPS transponders and collect the tax during fueling stops. The new tax per mile would be called a VMT fee or Vehicle Miles Traveled fee.
Whitty would also like to see other technologies besides GPS considered.
"There is an odometer sensor which can calculate mileage and then data can be transferred by radio frequencies to a fuel pump. We are going to be looking at both," Whitty explained.
Whitty believes that despite the fears of potential civil liberties violations, the new method of calculating road taxes is needed to make transportation taxes fairer.
"[The task force] wanted it to look like the gas tax used to look like back around 1960 when all cars virtually got the same miles per gallon," Whitty said. "What has happened though is that in the 70s, 80s and 90s, some cars became more fuel efficient and others didn't.
"There was no longer a correlation between miles driven and revenues raised," Whitty explained.
When asked about possible civil liberties violations, Whitty admitted that people should be cautious about the state's use of the mileage tracking technology.
"They should be concerned and they should watch this and make sure that is doesn't turn into such a thing," Whitty said.
However, "that is not the purpose of this fee," he added. "The state transportation department has no interest in knowing where people are going either currently or after the fact."
Whitty believes police may ultimately end up using the GPS data for criminal investigations.
"If there was a police necessity perhaps, but we are not looking at that. That is not our concern," he said.
Edwards remains unconvinced.
"You can say it's not the purpose, but later on it will be abused and expanded," Edwards said.
"We don't need the government to have Big Brother precise tracking systems to make sure the highways are precisely paid by precisely the right people who use them," Edwards continued. "The gas tax now is roughly efficient."
Edwards also dismissed Whitty's concerns about dwindling revenues from gas taxes.
"The private sector is doing more with less. I don't see why the government sector also cannot continue to improve its productivity," he said.
Edwards also believes the cost of the GPS proposal would be too high considering "all the bureaucracy costs of setting up and installing the system, hiring satellite time, running the computers and having all the analysts looking at data."
"Do we really need all that? Edwards asked.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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That's BS. Increased fuel effeciency is an incentive to buy a more fuel-efficient car! That "unfairness" is supposed to be a good thing!
What is "Catch 22"?
This bill should be called what it is: "The Low Gas Mileage SUV Protection Act"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a heavier vehicle uses more fuel, doesn't that mean it's also causing more wear and tear on the road? Doesn't this mean gas taxes ARE fair?
BINGO!
You are right. The only way gas tax would be unfair only if you take the position that the drivers of fuel efficient automobiles are somehow getting a "free ride" (pun intended) at the expense their low milage counterparts. But isn't this exactly what the big govt. types have been advocating for years? ie. - create incentives to use less gas? So....if gas taxes really are a fair way to make those who use the roads most pay their fair share, then what is the real reason reason for this legislation? I could accept the "SUV protection act" concept except this is Oregon. They are pretty liberal there and those types generally consider SUV's to be the devil incarnate. From all I've read, those people would love the chance to sock it to the drivers of gas guzzlers and reward the Yugo drivers. I could be cynical and paranoid and believe that the real reason for this proposal is just to give the State the power to be able to track everyone in their automobiles and I'm not sure this isn't the correct answer. This whole thing doesn't really add up and although I try to keep an open mind on things, this doesn't pass the sniff test.
I thought that that was the purpose of all the other taxes - to build and maintain the roads. This purely Dem thinking is one more sign of why we are in dire straits if we don't stamp out the commies (left-wing "liberal" nutcases in the DemocRATic party) in government.
Ummm... I thought that was called the "gasoline tax."
The more gas you use, the more tax you pay. Furthermore, users are taxed on the relative efficiency of their cars.
Any gain they anticipate from this intrusive, Orwellian technology will be offset by the mass exodus from Oregon.
Honda Accord: $1.39/gal., Cadillac Escalade: $1.55/gal....
There are a lot of sides to this issue, but it all boils down to money ... how much money the gov't can use to buy votes and social largess.
First, the gas tax was never intended to, and does not, pay for all road construction. Road construction is best viewed as a "capital expense" necessary for the common good. Road repair is another expensive problem that can be solved by less corruption in gov't, but the Dems won't go there. The issue needs to be divided up to new road construction (access), based upon growth, and road maintenance. The Feds are paying for I35, for example, to be rebuilt all through Texas to handle the increased trafic and weight due to NAFTA.
Second, lighter vehicles cause much less damage to roadways than heavy trucks. Lighter vehicles also pay far fewer fuel taxes, compared to SUVs and trucks. Could zero-emission vehicles impact the ability to states to budget for maintenance? Possibly, but road use taxes will appear at the LNG and hydrogen pumps sooner or later. Electric cars will just have a road use tax built into the price of the car.
Does anyone think that the value of less air pollution will exempt these cars from taxes? Hah! Gov't will never give up a revenue stream.
I don't remember the stats, but every truck, local and especially longhaul, pays a huge proportion of road use taxes in comparison to any private vehicle. The biggest problem in road maintenance is not the number of cars, but of overloaded trucks that damage roads not designed for such weights.
The major issue in Oregon is not the amount of road use taxes collected, but the way in which politicians feel they own the money being disbursed.
Of course, we could institute a new "Emergency Room and Medical Tax" on smaller vehicles, since their users disproportionately clog hospitals after traffic accidents.
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