Big Brother in Minnesota Needs Your Help!

Big Brother in Minnesota Needs Your Help!

www.dot.state.mn.us

The Minnesota Department of Transportation is looking for 500 people to test technology that could someday be used to collect a mileage-based user fee.
Mn/DOT anticipates a fee on road usage might someday be necessary as more fuel efficient and hybrid cars are on the road, decreasing revenue from the gas tax. …
Recruiting for the Minnesota Road Fee Test will begin in May, with research starting in July. Volunteers must be from Hennepin or Wright County. Drivers will be given smart phones with a GPS application that has been programmed to allow them to submit information. Volunteers will ge

(visit the link for the full news article)

Democrats have proposed passing a mileage tax on state and national levels to counter the dropoff in revenue, but one main practical obstacle is that gaining the data from millions of cars will be expensive, clumsy, and almost certainly unreliable. Minnesota realizes this, which is why it put out a call to masochists to participate in a pilot program to help them iron out the wrinkles.

In case you are wondering, there is little doubt that Minnesota can find 500 people to participate in this study. All they really need to do is go into the garages of Hennepin and Wright counties and look for “Happy to Pay for a Better Minnesota” bumper stickers (yes, that’s no joke either) and knock on the front doors of the first 500 they find. What’s that you say — that would be an invasion of privacy? Of course it would, but not much more so than tracking systems for mileage taxes.

But what the hay! Its all in the name of the environment and helping our children ... and who could be against that!



www.dot.state.mn.us
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by SirMike


Democrats have proposed passing a mileage tax on state and national levels to counter the dropoff in revenue, but one main practical obstacle is that gaining the data from millions of cars will be expensive, clumsy, and almost certainly unreliable. Minnesota realizes this, which is why it put out a call to masochists to participate in a pilot program to help them iron out the wrinkles.

I would think the next thing you will see in MN is some sort of hack to get the system to report false (lower) mileage than is actually driven.

There's not one mention of "democrat" in that article, your own link states the MN DOT is conducting a study into alternative financing for roads as the gas tax will eventually decline - in one or two decades.

Further, according to your own link, the three previous studies along these same lines were done in 2007, 2008, and 2009 - under Governor Tim Pawlenty, a republican.

So how exactly is this a "blame the democrats" issue? If you had left the partisan trolling out of your post you could focus on the real issue, the MN department of transportation is seeking way to track mileage use versus collecting a gas tax for road maintenance.

Democrats have proposed passing a mileage tax on state and national levels to counter the dropoff in revenue, but one main practical obstacle is that gaining the data from millions of cars will be expensive, clumsy, and almost certainly unreliable. Minnesota realizes this, which is why it put out a call to masochists to participate in a pilot program to help them iron out the wrinkles.

Sorry OP but this is a lie. Show me the legislation where a democrat has proposed this. I can only assume you are trying to troll the boards by blaming democrats for something the MN DOT has studied under Pawlenty the previous (and republican) governor.

The democrats across the country who still got power are really stupid to be trying to enact stuff like this. The Tea Party is going to wipe the floor with them nationwide when ammunition like this is handed to them. The moderate dems that are going to be out of a job will find themselves on the streets with the angry left who already got tossed under the bus by Obama's campaign promise reversals.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
Sorry OP but this is a lie. Show me the legislation where a democrat has proposed this. I can only assume you are trying to troll the boards by blaming democrats for something the MN DOT has studied under Pawlenty the previous (and republican) governor.

edit on 20-4-2011 by Blackmarketeer because: (no reason given)

Umm .. Ok.

H.R.3311, introduced by Earl Blumenauer D-Or

To direct the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a pilot program to study alternatives to the current system of taxing motor vehicle fuels, including systems based on the number of miles traveled by each vehicle.

H.R. 6313, also introduced by Earl Blumenauer D-Or

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a vehicle mileage tax for mobile mounted concrete boom pumps in lieu of the tax on taxable fuels, and for other purposes.

More?

Oh, a link to a similar program from OREGON? I thought this was about Minnesota? You must have cast your net far and wide to find another program from another state that has a democrats name attached to it to make your allusion that this is being perpetrated by democrats.

So let's look at the Oregon program on "mileage fees", and see who that leads to - democrat or republican?

According to the Oregon DOT, that program, the "Road User Fee Task Force" began in 2001, and surprise surprise, it was done under republicans.

2001 Road User Fee Task Force, Bruce Starr (R), Chair.

Oregon.gov

The Road User Fee Task Force was established through HB 3946, passed by the 2001 Oregon Legislative Assembly.

House Bill 3946 (pdf file)

Senator Bruce Starr (R)
Road User Fee Task Force Chair

Passed by the 2001 house and senate of Oregon. The program you linked to began in 2009, and follows the one began by Starr in 2001, with a pilot program in 2006.

According to the Starr (R) plan:

In 2001, the Oregon State Legislature authorized the creation of the Road User Fee Task Force to examine various revenue raising alternatives for replacing Oregon’s gas tax as the primary source of revenues for repairing, maintaining, and building Oregon’s roads.

The purchasing power of the state’s gas tax has steadily eroded over the years for several reasons:

- the gas tax has not kept pace with inflation;
- voters have opposed increases in the gas tax; and
- the fuel efficiency of new vehicles, especially hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles, continues to increase, resulting in less gas tax paid.

Sound familiar?

I don't want anyone to worry. Obama said that he would NOT raise taxes on anyone making less than 250K a year.
So it's all good, people.