Top Lawmaker Wants Mileage-Based Tax on Vehicles

Originally posted by vor78
It has nothing to do with taxation or the road system. Its a political power play. They're trying to raise the cost of living in rural and semi-rural areas in an attempt to drive those people into the cities. They know that if they can get them out of those rural areas and into the cities, they can also destroy the self-sufficiency and traditional values prevalent in most rural areas that have plagued the Democratic party for years.

This now comes down to a matter of opinion, and I suppose...as an outsider..the value of my opinion is limited, but I still think you are being overly cynical. The Democrats won...time to start working together instead of fighting the last election.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Maybe it is overly cynical, but at the same time, I know who these initiatives would hurt the worst and I also know that those same people tend to vote against the Democratic party in national elections. Given the absolute disdain that certain elements of the party have for rural voters and their beliefs, I believe that this is the real agenda. If they can't win them over on ideas, they can always drive them out legislatively and thereby dilute their political strength.


[edit on 2-5-2009 by vor78]

Originally posted by SpacePunk

It's not a 'gasoline tax', it's a fuel tax. People that use alternative fuels are suppose to pay the tax, much like people are suppose to pay the states sales tax on items purchased outside of that state (in most states).

People that use alternative fuels, and do not pay the tax on those fuels are guilty of tax evasion.

Next time you go to the pump to fill up, check and see how much of the price is actually "tax." Where do you think the third decimal (usually a '9' or '5') comes from? (e.g., $2.009/gal. or $4.259/gal.)

I should have said 'diesel and gasoline' tax. There is no federal "fuel tax" on hydrogen or electricity. There may be fuel "surcharges" added by your provider to your utility bills, though.

jw

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Here's what's likely going to be an unpopular notion, but does a milage-based tax not come closer to establishing a fair 'user-pay' fee on road use? The argument can be made that why should somebody who lives in the city and takes transit instead of driving, be called upon to subsidise the roads needed to accommodate urban sprawl? Paying taxes is always a pig...but it's tough to balance out user-pay versus societal good at the best of times..

Except, we don't just use the roads to go to work, school, movies, et c.
How do you think food gets to the grocer? Teachers get to your children's schools? Clothes and shoes get to the Goodwill or Macy's. Medicine to the Dr. or pharmacy? Repair and installation vehicles to the utility or your neighborhood?

Work commutes account for only a fraction of the fuel used in the U.S.

Public transportation and delivery/distribution use far more fuel on any given day than personal commutes. (Most public transportation I've used is usually mostly empty, but travels the same routes regardless.)

Hell, Obama just spent $300,000+ of transportation costs just to take pictures of his airplane!

This is not the United 'Re-Distributive' States of America, or the United Socialist States of America.

Deny ignorance.

jw

reply to post by jdub297


You are already taxed on electricity. Hydrogen, used as a fuel, would be taxed as a fuel. Those guys that are running their diesel engines on vegetable oil, blue gas (wood gasification), or other alternate fuels technically should pay the fuel tax.

But that wouldn't stop the politicians from soaking the people for more taxes. It's a feudal situation as much as people like to bandy about 'democracy'. You are a freedman only as long as you continue to pay tribute.

As my SO likes to say. America isn't a country it's a club and as long as you pay your "dues" you can stay.

We both are truck drivers and drive over 6k miles per week. I can't even begin to imagine how much more we'd end up forking over if this additional tax goes thru.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

The Democrats won...time to start working together instead of fighting the last election.

The fact that they won an election does not validate their subsequent actions. Nor does it mean that their "solutions" or decisions are the correct ones.

Would the fact that they "won" an election make it Okay to claim Canada allowed the September 11 terrorists into the U.S.?

Or to say that the Canadian border presents the same problems to the U.S. as the Mexican border?

Since Dems. won a majority of seats in the House and the Executive branch, is it correct for them to tax Canadian citizens? Impose punitive tarriffs? Embargo your trade?

jw

reply to post by SpacePunk


"Would be" and "should be" are not taxes. Nor do they constitute a basis for prosecution of 'tax evasion.' If it's not taxed, you're "evading" nothing.

Congress levied a Federal "Highway and Transportation Tax" on gasoline and diesel fuels sold by the gallon (or fraction thereof) at the pump.

These are the taxes they claim will be replaced by the mileage tax (read the legislation if you doubt this).

There is no such tax on LNG, hydrogen, wood, bio fuels, electricity, et c.

jw.

How much more damn money do these facists want from us ?! Pretty soon they're gonna tax us for using the bathroom ! Heck we might as well just open a damn vein for them I swear if they pass this thing i'm gonna go balistic, i can't give them anymore money

reply to post by chise61


But, if you make less than $250k; no, $190k; no, $90k, your income tax will go down, maybe.

Of course, your electricity, gasoline, heat and food will cost more; but, at least it's a "change."

"Hope" the Obama-ites are happy.

jw

reply to post by jdub297


Thanks to this goverment that's been out of control for way too long the only thing that's gonna go down is the money in my pocket

Hey i'm a Ron Paul girl

reply to post by chise61

Texas has long had a strong Libertarian contingent. I've always agreed with the view that the Constitution encompasses a 'right to be left alone' (although not for the reason/issue it was originally proposed).

I'm 100% certain that Congress and the Obama administration want to dig as deeply inro our pockets AND our lives as they can get away with.

Ron Paul and to a lesser extent, Mike Huckabee, have it right as far as I'm concerned. The Fed sponges have gone too far.

jw

The tax would work by equipping vehicles with GPS technology to determine how many miles a car has been driven and whether on highways or local roads. They would then calculate the amount of tax owed.

Now how would they stop someone from disabling the system or jamming the GPS signal by grounding the antenna or rapping the unit Tin foil so that it could not receive its signals.

I my self would build a power supply where i could take the unit on a long fishing trip.
Say 25 miles off the coast and then when i got the tax bill i would challenge it is being bogus.
Let them try to figure out how my car got 25 miles out to sea.

Also if you are living in Calif do you have to pay the state of Nevada when you go to Las Vagas.

If you are say a rancher or farmer would you have to pay mileage based tax on driving on you own property.

The biggest problem i see is the government would now be able to track your every movement while driving.
How long before they start sending you speeding tickets because your mileage based tax signals showed you made a trip from point A to B faster then the speed limit allowed.

or you own say a jeep that you tow behind your motorhome.
are you going to have to pay mileage on both the motor home and the jeep even though the jeep was being towed to where you were going.

Or how long till someone got arrested because there GPS signal showed they stopped in a parking lot to take a break at the same time a robbery was taking place in a business next door.
Or you pulled off the highway somewhere to take a nap and someone did a breakin a few hundred feet away.

Or the criminal that uses the signal to prove his alibi because he know how to stop the signal at a point do his crime and go back to the same point he turned off the signal and turn it back on and then claim he stopped to take a nap and his car would show he was not at the crime scene.

This to me is not what they say it is. It is not just a mileage based tax system but is in reality a system to track every car owner in the country.

Big Brother is Watching. Big Time.

i think to many lawmakers have to much time on there hands and don't understand the people will not understand a system that tracks there every move. they are going to believe that it is a invasion of there privacy.

Originally posted by ANNED The biggest problem i see is the government would now be able to track your every movement while driving.

While I stated that this system could be used to make user-pay fees fairer, the points you made are bang on! And given the US government's attitude on warrantless snooping, the Big Brother parallels are well-taken.

I hereby publicly eat my last comment...with a big dollop of maple syrup, of course. (and ya' don't see that every day, either!)

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Johnny Canuck,

I have a problem with this concept..

While I stated that this system could be used to make user-pay fees fairer,

User fees....User fees???!!!

My understanding is that a free people have the ability to come and go as desired and not be taxed or regulate based on their comings and goings.

When a people are monitored as to thier comings and goings ..they are not a free people and must needs have a hall monitor to regulate thier comings and goings. This is not high school where we need hall monitors to keep up with us.

There is absolutely no reason for a government of any kind to regulate a free people nor keep tabs on them. Any time a government collects data..it is for the purpose of regulating and controlling the people of a nation if favor of the government. Anytime data is taken some data guru will try to readjust the data by rules regulations and controls sufficient to make the new paradigm to come out right. The new numbers must be made to come out correctly by new regulations, taxes, controls...and always at public expense.

The most astonishing thing to me ..and one for which is quite obviouis.. is that the government parasites who vote for this nonsense will be immune from the controls..free to whore out the rest of us for political economic control or power. I find this totally disgusting and feudal in nature...a royal class seperate from the rest of us.

This nonsense is not about making fees fairer...the fair thing is to leave the public alone to determine their ability to come and go as free people..not to regulate them by the body politic while taxing and whoring out the very souls of the public to the whorish political will.

Amazing how such nonsense as fees is so easily used to replace the concept of a free people.

The only thing these fees will do is make government sovereign and the people subject. Thats why we call it whoredom. A subject people are not a free people.

A free people is a people whos government is controlled and put in check. Not the other way around.

Thanks,
Orangetom