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The Joint Study Committee on the Electrification of Transportation has endorsed the Georgia Department of Transportation’s pilot program taxing motorists based on vehicle miles traveled. Charging a mileage tax would recoup what state leaders see as a potential loss in revenue via the gas tax. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, suspended the gas tax to help Georgians counter rising inflation. So far, the state hasn’t seen much of an impact from not collecting the gas tax, which typically totals about $170 million per month. The state has seen its other revenues increase and has turned to federal handouts for various...

Following a slowly growing national movement, Pennsylvania may be ready to try the idea of charging drivers a mileage-based fee to make up millions in transportation revenue lost to more fuel-efficient hybrid and electric cars. Melissa J. Batula, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s acting executive deputy secretary, said the department is working with the General Assembly to draft legislation establishing fees for those who pay little or nothing toward road maintenance. That’s because the state gets about 75% of its road money from the gasoline tax. A commission appointed last year by Gov. Tom Wolf recommended a series of steps...

On Sunday, the Senate released the final text of the so-called bipartisan (but really liberal) infrastructure bill — all 2,702 pages. According to Breitbart, the huge bill was written in secret for months outside the normal legislative process. Buried in the measure is a pilot program for a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee (MBUF) which is basically a long-term plan to make it too expensive to drive a car. One of the “fun” parts of the supposed bipartisan bill (fun for believers of the climate change hypothesis) can be found on page 511 of the measure, which you can...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Tuesday suggested using a truck-only vehicle miles traveled tax during the Senate Finance Committee's hearing on infrastructure funding. His suggested method would levy a tax of 25-cents for every mile driven. The mileage would be tracked via government-mandated devices that report the data back to the IRS. -snip- Texas Trucking Association President and CEO John D. Esparza noted taxing drivers a quarter for every mile equates to approximately $25,000 per truck that drives 100,000 miles a year – almost half the average salary for a truck driver. "Eighty-eight percent of trucking businesses in Texas are...

One American gets up in the morning, gets in his car and drives down a congested highway to work. Another wakes at noon and rides a subway to a saloon. Which of these two -- if America's future takes a wrong turn -- would pay what might be called the "Buttigieg tax"? CNBC's Kayla Tausche asked Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a March 26 interview what sort of taxes he perceived as possible ways to pay for infrastructure projects. "First, a gas tax," she asked. "You called it old-fashioned to raise the gas tax. Do you still believe that? Could...

Just last week Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg floated a funding idea for President Biden’s upcoming multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that would hit poor and middle-class Americans that hardest. Buttigieg suggested a mileage tax, which is based on what he called the “user pays principle—the idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive.” Drivers would thus be hit with this tax in addition to facing steadily climbing gas prices since President Biden took office. Now, however, he’s walking back that suggestion. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday, the former...

With the Biden administration’s unprecedented levels of spending just getting started, new ways to raise tax revenue to the government are beginning to be floated. We’ve already seen the proposition of raising some of the top marginal tax rates, increasing the corporate tax rate, and eliminating deductions as part of a broader “infrastructure” bill, which is really just a nearly $5 trillion slush fund of liberal wants. In an attempt to further pay for their desired monstrosity, Biden’s Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has a tax idea that isn’t going to go over well. Namely, he thinks that a mileage tax,...

Incoming Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has suggested taxing Americans for the number of miles they drive, a policy he endorsed as a Democratic presidential candidate. The Biden Administration is actively searching for ways to fund its ambitious $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., acknowledged "privacy concerns" related to implementing a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) system but said it should be considered as a potential replacement for the gas tax.

The federal government would get more bang for their buck if U.S. drivers were charged directly for their use of highways through tolls or mileage fees, a new study from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says.The report from Congress's budgetary scorekeepers says current "spending on highways does not correspond very well with how the roads are used and valued." The CBO said mechanisms like tolling, mileage fees or congestion pricing could be considered to fund transportation projects in lieu of relying mostly on gas tax revenue."Almost all federal spending for highways occurs through formula grants to state and local governments,...

Sick of the gas tax? What about a tax on every mile you drive? A new bill going through Sacramento would tax drivers for every mile they are on the road. The state gasoline tax of 52.9 cents per gallon could be replaced with a "miles driven fee" of $0.05 cents or so per mile driven, under state legislation proposed by a Bay Area lawmaker. State transit officials note that there's not nearly enough money available to fix the many bridges and roads in California that are in desperate need of repair. A federal highway fund, based on taxes on...

The Texas Legislature’s point man [Drew Darby] on transportation funding says Texas motorists need to understand that a higher gas tax would be a more 'open and transparent' way of dealing head on with the state's transportation crisis than the 'congestion tax' that motorists are currently paying every day. "I think we need to revert to pay as your go," State Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) told the San Antonio Mobility Coalition."Nine times members of the Legislature have raised the gasoline tax to pay for our transportation infrastructure, but that hasn't happened since 1991. Lawmakers over the past several years...

(CNN) -- Based on recent history and what's likely to happen to the nation's infrastructure, it's an inescapable conclusion: We will need new and different sources of funding if we are to have the type of transportation system that is needed to support economic prosperity. For the past 75 years, the U.S. road network has provided the foundation for much of the nation's economic development. This network has not come without a cost; estimates are that the replacement value of the nation's roads is $1.3 trillion.

(CNSNews.com) -- Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was adamant in telling CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the Obama administration does not favor tracking and taxing Americans for every mile they drive--a so-called Vehicular Miles Traveled (VMT) tax. LaHood had personally suggested that the administration look at a VMT early in his tenure at the Transportation Department and it had recently been reported that the administration was considering such a tax. In a Feb. 20, 2009 interview with the Associated Press LaHood said, "We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they...

Not content to tax your gasoline purchases, now the government wants to track exactly how far you drive - which, of course, implies tracking exactly where you drive. 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. .... 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. Oh yeah, that'll go...

Dumb ideas never die in Washington, DC. They just get stuck in committee. Proving that once again is outgoing Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), attempting to revive an idea for a new tax that was so intrusive and unwieldy that even Barack Obama had to disavow it two years ago when his Transportation Secretary starting pushing the notion. Conrad points to a new CBO study saying that taxing Americans on their car mileage will provide a windfall for the federal government: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they...

BJ_Covert_Action writes to let us know that an Oregon congressman has filed legislation to spend $154.5M for a research project into tracking per-vehicle mileage in the US, and asks: "Do we really want the government to track our movement and driving habits on a regular basis?" "US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system... Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled fee... the [Oregon] report urged a mandate for all drivers to install GPS tracking devices that would report driving...

The motor fuel tax has funded America’s roads for over 70 years. It has served its purpose well and has many positive features, the most important being that it is easy to pay (many people may not even be aware that their total at the gas pump includes this tax). However, the gas tax may need updating. Reasons for this include:

Sara was late for work. The alarm clock didn't alarm, the kids were unusually slow getting ready for school, and nothing went right. She finally got to her car -- a brand new 2020 Chevy Adventure. She touched the finger-print secured start button. Nothing. It wouldn't start. She touched it again. Nothing. Furious, she banged the steering wheel with her fist. Then she noticed the paper hanging from the receipt printer on the dash. "Your designated visa account rejected your Road Use Tax in the amount of $87.32 for the month of June, 2020. You must insert a valid account...

Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes. "I'm glad we're taking a look at it before the potholes get so big that we can't even get out of them," said Leroy Younglove,...

Mileage tax might be road bill funding source, Inhofe says By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau Published: 3/26/2009 2:31 AM WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Wednesday that a proposal to tax motorists on the miles they drive is being looked at as an alternative method to funding much-needed road projects. Conceding that such an approach could be awkward, the Oklahoma Republican said such proposals must be part of the discussion as he and other key member of Congress begin putting together the next huge transportation spending authorization bill. "No one thing is going to do it,'' Inhofe said,...