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White House Puts Out Feelers on the Transportation Opportunities Act

By: Tabitha Hale (Diary)  |  May 5th, 2011 at 12:09 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Via The Hill:

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.

It’s called the Transportation Opportunities Act, which is very ironic because I’m not sure of one opportunity that this would provide for the middle class Obama seems to keen on assisting. If you think for half a second you’ll quickly realize that we pay gas taxes every time we fill up our cars. For example, this chart.

Yes, Connecticut, you’re already spending over $.70/gallon on taxes. In a 16 gallon tank, that’s $11.20 going to the government every time you fill up. This already serves the purpose of taxing people on how much they drive. No, it’s not as accurate as, say, monitoring the mileage of every vehicle and taxing them based on how much they actually drive. The logistics of implementing a system that tracks the mileage of every car owner to monitor road use are mind boggling, not to mention a direct infringement on the rights of drivers. They seem to know that Americans will not accept this sort of violation, which is why they’re ready to wage the PR campaign:

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 administration is denying that it’s an official proposal, claiming that it isn’t so much a proposal as an early draft, and that it was never approved. What it feels like is a way for them to get people used to the idea and start warming us up to their intent.

It’s unwise to put anything past this administration in regards to raising taxes. It may seem far fetched, but it’s not necessarily a new tax idea, and has been floated at the state level in several states, including Illinois and North Carolina. They will likely cloak it in green and sell it as the responsibilty of the motorist to pay their “fair share”.

The question is, does the White House believe that everyone who owns a car is “rich”? It seems a little more than probable that the majority of motor vehicle owners fall well below President Obama’s $250k threshhold.

At this point, it appears our President is actively working to destroy the middle class he’s been preaching about rescuing.

COMMENTS

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  • msctex

    . . .and now they want to discourage Demand.

    These are people who are going to do what they are going to do, to the precise extent they are allowed. If it Seems of Feels right, it must be the way, and any past experience or even basic mathematics which stand in the way will sort themselves out, given time. They always do.

    Were they to devastate the country in the process, deep down they believe we have it coming anyway.

    • Flagstaff

      The ultimate goal is control. Maybe that’s what’s really behind the idea of high speed rail, which is completely impractical unless it follows existing rights-of-way.

      If taxes get high enough, the only affordable way to travel far will be by train. We’ll return to a life style of a hundred years ago, when most people never got more than 20 miles away from their place of birth. After all, we don’t really NEED to travel, do we?

      (“Atlas Shrugged” is worth seeing. A well-done pot-boiler reminiscent of Harold Robbins, but with a lot less sex. I propose we all display “Who is John Galt?” bumper stickers so we can find each other.)

  • acat

    Oh, and you guys with the modified plug-in Prius kits? Yeah, you too!

    Thought you could get away with stiffing Uncle Sam by plugging your car in at night? Nope! If he can’t catch you at the pump, he’ll catch you at the odometer!

    And, as with the ezpass-type tollway systems, you know they’re gonna capture data that they don’t need .. and that it’s a matter of time before they sell it or use it or .. both.

    Mew

    • catt

      If they did something like this I would be that Volt owners would be exempted.

      • Flagstaff

        It’s aimed right at the Volt and Prius. The idea is to collect tax from those who don’t pay gas taxes.

    • steve010

      Chevy Volt Federal Rescue Road Rangers

      Since the Chevy Volt only has a range of between 25 and 40 miles depending on how cold it is outside, CVFRRR

      • Carn

        I was debating one of your fellow Volt critics on another thread here on RedState. He refused to believe my claim that there are people out there who are so ignorant as to think the Volt has a total range of only 40 miles, and implicitly accused me of spreading false stories about Volt critics to make you guys look bad.

        I was only too happy to link to your aggressively ignorant comment to show him that people like you do in fact exist.

        See here for our exchange:

        http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/03/18/the-chevy-volt-designed-for-democratic-bureaucrats/#comment-50651

        And of course, for the record, genius, the Volt has a backup generator engine that burns gasoline and can keep it going for another 300 miles, after which you can pull over and fill up like any other car. And most people drive far less than 40 miles a day, so most of the time the electric-only range is all you’ll need. The Volt gives you the best of both worlds. Freeing you from having to use jihad juice for the vast majority of your everyday local driving, but preserving the ability to drive long distances in the relatively rare event you need to do so.

        Now crawl back under your rock of shame.

        • drothgery

          … that it’s a $40,000 car that’s nowhere near nice enough (except for its drive system) to be a $40,000 car. So unless you rack up a ton of miles on short commutes, you’re better off with a high-mileage traditional small car (if you drive a normal amount) or a conventional hybrid (which is still a lot cheaper than a Volt) if you drive a very high amount.

          I really thing Volt-style plug-in hybrids are a great idea (especially if you build nuclear power plants for the electricity) in theory. But it’s not ready for prime time yet, and even if it was, it would never be good enough to justify giving Government Motors money.

          • Carn

            We can have a nice long debate about the Volt’s merits and drawbacks. But that’s basically irrelevant to the point I made above, which is that a disturbingly large portion of Volt critics think it can only go 40 miles and no further.

            You complain about the Volt’s price. Well, it’s brand-new, first generation technology. If all you care about is wringing the most miles per dollar out of your car, Scrooge-style, then the Volt is indeed not for you. Some of us, however, are sick of enriching the jihad, and welcome a chance to move about without using jihad juice.

            As for “Government Motors”, don’t give me that. The feds have reduced the holding of GM from 61% to 33% and is looking to unload the rest as fast as possible, even at a loss. Nobody’s ranting against buying a Corvette, or a Tahoe. It’s the Volt, and only the Volt, that gets special venom because it represents a chance to move beyond oil, and too many conservatives WRONGLY have a loyalty to oil in the WRONG belief that oil is free market and American. In reality, oil is foreign and socialist – more than 78% of world oil reserves are held by OPEC while we have less than 3%, INCLUDING Arctic and offshore.

          • jiminga

            “The feds have reduced the holding of GM from 61% to 33% and is looking to unload the rest as fast as possible, even at a loss.”

            You do realize the “loss” is taxpayer money flushed down the toilet, right? Money spent to support the UAW, screw the bondholders, and re-create a company that’s stock remains below the IPO price while the market booms.

            You support a car that will only go 40 miles on a charge, then uses your “jihad juice” to go the reat of the way. A 40 mile commute means 20 miles each way and those of us who live in big cities commute much more than that (my wife drives 57 miles each way) and there’s no charging station at her office building.

            The Volt is a subsidized $40,000 piece of driveway dressing and the lousy sales prove it.

          • Carn

            Jiminga, yes, I realize that if the feds unload their 33% share of GM right now the taxpayers will lose money on our investment. But if the feds hung on to their 33% share hoping the value goes up, and waiting to sell to make a profit, you’d be screaming about “socialism” wouldn’t you? It’s precisely the intense political pressure on the federal government over the “socialism” issue, as well as GM’s desperate desire to shed the “Government Motors” stigma, that is creating this rush by the government to dump its remaining GM shares. You can’t have it both ways. What do you want, a maximized value for the taxpayers’ investment, or the feds out of the car business ASAP? Pick ONLY one and stick with it.

            For the record, I opposed and oppose the government / union takeover and the way the bond-holders were treated. However, I think the cries of “socialism” and “Marxist” on our side are way overdone, Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf. It’s as bad as the Left that sees a racist or a Nazi behind every tree and under every bed from policies that annoy minorities but are not malicious – such as the death penalty, scrapping affirmative action, ending immigration, etc.

            On the issue of the Volt’s range, GM didn’t pick it by accident. Most Americans drive less than 40 miles a day; in fact more than 75% of us live closer than a 20 mile drive from work. That’s why the Volt’s electric-only range is just fine for the vast majority of our driving – the everyday, local variety. It would have been easy and much cheaper for GM to just pad the electric range a little further with a bigger batter, and not offer an internal combustion backup at all. That’s what Nissan has done with the Leaf, which has a 100 mile range, but no gasoline range extender. But that middle range is unneeded for most people’s everyday local driving, and not enough for the occasional long distance trip. The Volt is the product of extremely careful planning to make an electric vehicle as mainstream and practical as possible.

            You have no obligation to dislike the Volt. Oil does not deserve your loyalty – it’s foreign, socialist, terror-funding glop that we have very little of but our enemies lots of. The Volt was begun in 2006, under Bush and the GOP Congress, when GM was a purely privately owned firm. The tax break it gets is from a 2005 law passed by the GOP Congressed and signed by Bush – money well spent to help break free of oil, WHICH FUNDS THE ENEMIES WE ARE AT WAR WITH.

            As for slow sales, GM is rolling it out very slowly, being extremely cautious, knowing how closely watched the Volt is. It only made 1,000 or so released it in a handful of states in model year 2011, and will make about 10,000 for this model year.

          • acat

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar

            Unlike the Volt, it didn’t use any devil petroleum at all!

            Mew

          • edintexas

            “Nobody

          • Carn

            Ford came to the same hearings Chrysler and GM came to to support the other two’s request for taxpayer assistance, the rationale being that if they went under the parts and subcontractor/supplier network would dry up and hurt Ford too. In fact Ford seriously considered asking for a taxpayer bailout as well and only just avoided having to do so.

            I have a special beef with Ford since it invented flex fuel technology, both with the original Model T (which could run on ethanol or gasoline), and in the modern era, invented the modern flex-fuel vehicle in 1986 which could run on either methanol or gasoline, and later methanol, ethanol, or gasoline. Ford showed the way forward to let us break free of OPEC. It would cost only $130 per new car at the factory to make flex fuel a standard feature. And yet Ford has done very little with this technology, dragging its feet. In fact it’s been left behind by GM’s own pathetically slow pace in making alternative fuel compatibility a standard feature.

          • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

            And like Ed, if someone gave me a GM vehicle I would drive it down to Toyota and trade it for a real quality car. Or a Nissan. Or I would replace my BMW.

          • acat

            And I’ll keep my Camry, thanks.

            Mew

          • Flagstaff

            **We can have a nice long debate about the Volt

    • carolina

      The govt is worried about losing gasoline tax revenues because of the growing use of alternative fuels (electric/battery, ethynol, nat gas, biofuels, etc)
      That is what this was initially all about. BO probably sees it as a way to fund his grand transportation infrastructure plans. So, he is ready to jump on board right now – and we gasoline users will be double taxed.
      BO’s greed for new tax revenues could get him trounced in 2012. (I hope)

      • Flagstaff

        As gasoline and diesel usage goes down due to higher prices, enhanced fuel economy and alternative fuels, federal gas tax revenues drop with it. The Administration rightly believes that if they raised gasoline taxes, populist news-howlers would be right on them for it. So they’d try to figure a way to charge us by the mile, no matter what fuel we use. And yes, it is directly right at the Volt and Prius drivers among us.

        Keep your eyes open for other taxes they aren’t talking about.

  • catt

    The link labeled “The Hill” seems to be broken … but I found another excerpt:

    “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.”

    Installing some new electronic device on _every_ car? That’s just nuts. What would it be … a GPS based device? It’s hard to count how many things are wrong with this idea.

    Also … what’s the CBO doing suggesting new ways to raise taxes? They’re supposed to provide analysis of budget proposals. Now they’re coming up with their own proposals … and absurd intrusive completely unimplementable proposals at that? That just adds whole new layers to how wrong this is.

    • http://tabithahale.com Tabitha Hale

      Thanks for catching.

    • Flagstaff

      to set up the agency (new) to calculate and collect the tax. Until it quadruples.

      That means, it would have to extract about $1 from each working American just to cover its expenses. Assuming its estimate is right, which it probably isn’t.

  • jackhammer

    The machine to do it is readily available and costs about $400.

    But knowing these guys and how much they love to spend our money on fancy expensive machinery with more expensive long term service contracts….I see fancy rfid tollbooths built like bridges, monitoring miles passed….let’s hope their civil libertarian wing goes on the barricades on that.

    In Germany they have inplemented a system like that for trucks, with the possibly meritous claim that trucks put a lot more wear and tear on the road than cars…but this has lead to the unintended consequence of trucks taking to the byroads to avoid the tolls…

    But hey, drop the gas taxes, put in a per mile toll, and let’s all go get the biggest SUV’s we can afford, because gas mileage becomes less relevant….

    • jeffstag

      There’s actually no law that states that a car must have a working odometer. It would have to be something GPS based. The logistics of this are mind boggling. I don’t see anything ever coming of it.

      Of course, if every car has GPS tracking, you can send out speeding tickets based on this data and the units would pay for themselves in short order. Tie in electronic monitoring of traffic lights to vehicle GPS and you get even more revenue. Heck, there’s probably a way to remotely monitor seat belt usage. The government is really missing the boat here. And they can do it all in the name of highway safety !

      • catt

        The article said something about a new electronic device on every car so tampering with the odometer wouldn’t help. It would have to be GPS … what kind of shielding is needed to block a GPS signal?

        • jeffstag

          Geez, looks like all those tinfoil hats may end up being useful after all….

      • jackhammer

        I have a friend with a trucking firm in Germany, adn they have these about ever 30 miles ont he highways there. It is a simple chip on the top of the truck (or the windshield), you can either pre pay or set up billing. As you pass a tollbooth, which looks like 3 ladders of steel set up like a bridge over the highway, at full speed (which in Gemrany for a truck still means 80mph), it notes the chip number. I think because of thier strict civil liberty laws regarding data collection and privacy (facebook adn google are often in court in Germany) they aren’t allowed to collect the data and recreat the routes, so they just charge like $5 for every tollbooth passed or somehting like that. They also have specificalyl disallowed any type fo speed monitoring or any other infraction tracking through this system.

        The system was developed by a division of Mercedes Benz, adn seems to work very well….the government is contemplating implementing it for passenger cars too…again probably falling revenue due to better gas mileage.

        • http://whattoreadtoday.blogspot.com/ Paula

          “Buckeye Traffic (www.buckeyetraffic.org) provides Ohio travelers with up-to-date information on road conditions, traffic, construction, and other activity affecting roadways managed by The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). Information provided by this site is updated frequently and comes from a variety of sources, such as pavement sensors and monitoring stations, traffic cameras, and through direct input by ODOT personnel.”

    • acat

      use OnStar or an equivalent new mandated “remote diagnostic tool” to read it at random intervals?

      (spits on GM)

      Mew

      • jackhammer

        nt

        • acat

          in the same way doctors and hospitals and teachers and social workers and even some volunteer organizations have to report certain things like child abuse…

          Mew

          • Flagstaff

            if you have a damaged or ineffective catalytic converter or polluting exhaust system.

    • edintexas

      What in the world makes you think this would be in lieu of the gasoline/diesel taxes? I’m sure you know it is a real rarity for any tax to be eliminated or even reduced (e.g. the Telephone excise tax established to pay for the Spanish American War, dropped a few years ago). Nope, I think this will be considered to be in addition to fuel taxes. After all, I put diesel in my tractor and gasoline in my outboard. Can’t get mileage on those (I know the tax is supposed to be recoverable for off-road use – though not for marine use).

  • vamoose

    I pay it every time I fill up. The more I drive; the more I pay. If I choose to drive a big truck, I pay more. If I choose to drive a Prius, I pay less. What’s the problem?

    How is this a “transportation opportunity” for me or any American?

    • Bill S

      This isn’t *supposed* to be a consumption tax. It is a tax on movement. It is a social engineering attempt to get people to not drive (and of course to extract money from us). This tax could/would affect any vehicle: gasoline, diesel, electric, hybrid, etc. Of course the Left would probably push for exemptions for the Government Motors Volt and other politically-correct cars.

      But don’t be fooled into thinking this is somehow equivalent to a gas tax. It’s an entirely different motive altogether.

      • http://www.twitter.com/AveSharia evanm

        I don’t make a lot of money per day, but I have to drive a long way to make it happen. If this tax got into the range of $.30/mile, it would no longer be worth it for me to do my job. I’m already taking an 11% hit off my gross income for fuel prices, and an additional 1% for every $.38/gal gas goes up. That doesn’t include vehicle maintenance and depreciation, or the fact that I still pay taxes on the income I spend on the commute.

        I guess I’ll need a retooling grant, or something. : \

        • Bill S

          See, you’re just the kind of person the Leftists who dreamed this up are targeting. Not only do they want to discourage driving, but they want to ENcourage a movement back into cities, because Leftists hate suburbs (“urban sprawl”). Applying a tax to commuters moves the USA closer to their social-engineered nirvana where all of us live in crowded cities and the outlying countryside is preserved nice and clean for the bunnies and birdies to frolic undisturbed by us nasty, polluting, evil humans.

          • catt

            The idea is that with a GPS monitor the tax per mile could depend on which road you’re on and the time of day or even the actual congestion level. In addition to vehicle weight and so on.

            In other words it could be used to encourage or discourage pretty much anything. Anything involving cars and trucks anyway. Once everyone has moved to he cities then obviously the next phase would have to be GPS ankle bracelets for people who don’t use cars.

          • dudette

            where only the bunnies the deer, oh, and the uber rich have private estates and mansions. Germans have this weird attitude that the land is necessary–open land—to the point where a farm cannot be divided among heirs–only one person can inherit the family farm because they are not allowed to subdivide. And the Germans just accept it sort of because that mindset has been inherited. The extent to which they bow to govt and govt “wisdom” is appalling and I say this about people of the younger generation—these were 30 somethings who spouted all this to me.

          • lineholder

            The urbanization policies (especially the ones being encouraged by ICLEI) give government primary control over property values while restricting business permits (read major governmental regulations on commerce at this point). Plus, it supports increased development and implementation of forced public transportation usage (read unions robbing us blind) along with greater demands coming from environmentalists and global warming theorists.

            If I had my way about it, we’d get rid of every sustainability office in this nation complying with ICLEI standards. Period.

          • Flagstaff

            you should.

          • Flagstaff

            in the Batman movies.

            I don’t ascribe anything that Obamania comes up with to altruistic motives, either. It’s all about control. Just like with Mussolini. (^:^)

      • earlgrey

        than use the closer one located in the iiberal urban city in which I work. This saved me time. It really scikens me that this administration wants me to pay extra for the privelage of choosing where I do business with the government. If government facilities were more user friendly and responsive to public needs anyway there would be no need for me to drive so far on $4/gallon gasoline.

      • dudette

        they want to control mobility. They dont want us to have the ability to escape by any means the long reach of govt claw and govt taxes ad govt control. I saw it in Europe where no one goes anywhere– well, when i lived there a couple decades ago—where everything is accountable and there is no way to hide. or drop out

    • jackhammer

      I saw the truck of the heating oil truck this morning, and I was thinking: what a horrible business to get in to.

      you knwo every year more people are going to be signing up for natural gas, or buying a more efficient furnace….your business plan has to be to sell 10% less every year, and hope one of your competitors gives up before you do, to have any chance at even maintaining your current business.

      Well, fuel efficiency and gas tax is the same….

      I mean imagine what woudl happen if they ever ended up taxing alcohol and cigarettes at the level that actually made 80% of people completely stop using it…..

    • blooch

      but the exact opposite of the bill’s intent? Especially any bill containing one or more of these words: “Fairness”, “Rights”, “Choice”, “Opportunity” or “Freedom”.

      Although, to be fair in this case, there is plenty of opportunity here for bureaucrats to pick your pocket

    • concap

      of Washington has added a tax to the hybrids

  • Ann_W

    Or we appear to be from the idiots we voted in to office in 2010.

  • http://www.dirkworld.com dirkbelig

    Ages ago, when I used to watch This Week with (I think) David Brinkley, George Will observed that liberal mass transit and anti-sprawl plans were predicated on their distaste for the fact that free people can get into their cars and go wherever they want, when they want and despise people who want to move out into the suburbs where they can have quiet and a yard. He said that liberals prefer people in urban environments where their mobility is restricted.

    What he didn’t explicitly say was why libs would want this: to make it easier to wall people into locked down ghettos. (I mean like Warsaw, not Detroit.) It’s hard to herd people in tract homes, but blocks of tenements? Yep. Easy. But to get them in the apartments, you need to get them back to the cities and making a long commute doubly expensive with high gas prices and mileage tariffs, then the serfs will be *encouraged* to come in closer and huddle up where our rulers want us.

    Liberalism is the antithesis of liberty.

  • http://whattoreadtoday.blogspot.com/ Paula

    “On October 17, 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries announced an oil embargo against the United States in retaliation for its support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Because the United States imported approximately 35 percent of its oil from foreign sources,[61] the embargo had a major effect. The price of gasoline shot upward, gasoline shortages were common, and rationing was considered. Most Americans began demanding a solution to the problem, and President Richard Nixon began lobbying for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline as at least a part of the answer.
    Nixon supported the pipeline project even before the oil crisis. On September 10, 1973, he released a message stating that the pipeline was his priority for the remainder of the Congressional session that year.[62] On November 8, after the embargo had been in place for three weeks, he reaffirmed that statement. Members of Congress, under pressure from their constituents, created the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, which removed all legal barriers from construction of the pipeline, provided financial incentives, and granted a right-of-way for its construction. The act was drafted, rushed through committee, and approved by the House on November 12, 1973, by a vote of 361

    • rickbull

      Nixon was a great president and a very intelligent man. Strangely enough, he is spoken more highly of in liberal circles now than conservative.

      In the end, it was his own paranoia that brought about the demise of his administration, but while he served, he served the country well.

  • krsnadas

    The looters always put the word “Opportunities” into their schemes – just like the “Equalization of Opportunities Act” in Atlas Shrugged. The only opportunity this presents is more ways of pillaging your wallet. They know the sheople don’t even get the joke or know what their schemes will lead to.

  • http://www.gmsplace.com/ civil truth

    1) This raises the spectre of the government being able to track the movement of every vehicle, which at some point could be real-time. Just one more plank in the surveillance society.

    (But it’s not government in your bedroom, so I guess its all cool – unless you’re a teen under the influence of hormones…)

    2) Imaging the mischief that will arise with stolen vehicles, in particular the owner of the stolen vehicle. Besides the mileage charges, the consequences could be quite severe if the stolen vehicle is used in a criminal enterprise or by “enemies of the state”.

  • Menlo

    Even those who choose not to drive at all will be hit with higher prices for food, clothes, and any other tangible product, whether delivered to a retailer or directly to one’s home or business. A significant part of higher food prices right now can be tied to higher gas prices. People can’t get all they need locally, especially if they are living in large urban areas near their work.

    I also have to question whether they have considered that the cost of monitoring individuals’ driving habits could exceed the additional revenue generated. They’ll have to hire a lot more bureaucrats. They’ll also be poised to reward big Democrat-supporting corporations with special deals and contracts.

    I guess “Opportunities” makes sense though considering “Affordable” and “Care” made it into “Obamacare.”

  • runner12

    luck getting that through the states. This would make the protest against ObamaCare look tame. The people won’t stand for it and the revolt against it would be massive.

    The statements from the WH sound like damage control to me. Obama’s handprints are all over this, but when they saw the shock on people’s faces when they revealed it they decided to walk it back. If I were a GOP candidate I would be all over this one.

    • rickbull

      I see an opportunity for a very profitable cottage industry coming my way . . .

      Can you say “kill switch” boys and girls? Nice try.

      • runner12

        Some computer genius would have something to get you out of paying the tax in less than 24 hours. Apple may even create an app for it :) .

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack
  • barrowmrb

    HEY IDIOTS,

    THIS YEAR IS COMING SOON.

    TIME TO DUMP THE COMMIES IN WASHINGTON.

    ITS YOUR TURN NOW.

    VOTE THEM OUT

    DON’T BE A SLUG AND SIT HOME.

    NO ON SPENDING, NO ON TAXES AND LETS GET OUT OF POLICING THE WORLD. GET OUT OF THE U.N.,AND NATO.

    LET EUROPE FEND FOR ITSELF.

  • popster

    nail in proving that liberal/progressive ideology is nothing more than Socialism spelled sidways.

  • http://theheartlander.wordpress.com/ heartlander

    “At this point, it appears our President is actively working to destroy the middle class he

    • http://theheartlander.wordpress.com/ heartlander

      What I’m getting at is that anyone who still doesn’t get it that Obama is an extremely committed Marxist is very, very naive — and/or just deliberately, willfully refusing to see it.

  • jasper1

    1. The bill authorizes a study of this kind of alternative tax structure. Besided the obvious technical issues, part of the study is to get “user reactions.”

    2. Why? Well as we increasingly move to fuel-efficient cars, plug in hybrids, and even all electric vehicles, there is a disconnect between the amount of fuel you use and the amount of wear and tear on the highways. Those who still use gas-powered vehicles, will either pay a disproportionate share of the highway tax or the amount of revenues available for road repairs will continue to drop. Some kind of alternate tax structure seems worthwhile to explore.

    3. The congress retains the right to impose taxes and, based on the information gathered from the study can choose whether to move towards this kind of tax system to replace the current gas tax.

    • Flagstaff

      Cynical aren’t we?

      Yes, with good reason. EVERY new tax is an additional tax. As with the USSR, our government would tax us 100% if it could, and they’re trying their best to figure out how.

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