Death to the Federal Gas tax!

SgtSpiderMan said:

You'd need to hire inspectors who checked peoples' odometers, and if I understand you correctly you would need them for the state & federal level.

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A few, but since it would be just random checking, you wouldn't need as many. That's why you'd make it a very heavy fine if caught, to make it not worth the risk of lying.
Wouldn't need both state and fed. Right now state and federal fuel taxes are collected at the same point of sale. No reason it couldn't be done at registration.

What's stopping some people from saying I drove 1,000 of those miles in Canada for a summer trip?

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Nothing. Just could add the condition that if you want to claim that, you provide fuel receipts. for your out of country travel.

In any case, I'm not saying it's the answer, but just one way to make it a bit more equitable for everyone.

phrodeau said:

It makes more sense to tax tires.

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Maybe, but if you want to base it on road wear, it would have to vary by tire size/load rating. A Smart Car isn't going to cause as much road wear as my 4WD F-250 HD.
But then you might get people making unsafe tire choices more than they already do, like using P load range tires when they should really be using LT tires. And people being "penalized" for using an LT tire for the added safety when they could just as well use a P load range.

It has actually been proposed over the last ten years or so to monitor each car's "vehicle miles traveled" and bill accordingly. Naturally, most people object to the idea of a government monitor installed in their cars.

There are, however, serious issues regarding the Federal-aid highway program, which encompasses not only the interstate system, but a variety of road and bridge networks.

The reason for redistribution is that the interstate network was meant to be a national asset, not a local responsibility. Low population states cannot afford to build and maintain long stretches of highways, so they get a subsidy from high-population states. At its most basic, if someone in Montana orders something from New York and has it delivered via UPS, the net benefit to the local economies justifies the the federal subsidy.

States are free to raise and spend as much money as they wish on their own roads, but taxes are a dirty word. My home state of Virginia is so tax averse that they cannot raise enough to meet the 10% contribution to federal projects. Also, most of the money spent on a road project goes to the 10 to 20 year planning process - environmental impact statements, public meetings, the inevitable lawsuits, etc. There is significant resistance to building new roads, much less maintaining existing ones.

Say what you will, but the federal gas tax has been one of the lowest, and, despite peoples' displeasure, one of the most productive taxes ever enacted. Where would we be without roads? Our level of mobility and the efficiency with which products can get to market is unprecedented. Imagine what it could be with full funding and a less cumbersome planning process.

We would be on rail and not constantly whining about cars and CO2 emissions...


We would not have the government throwing money at Fiskar and other boondoggles even when the market proves them to be failed enterprises. We would not be whining about how the Interstate destroyed the American downtown and we would not have to keep coming up with even dumber ideas to raise taxes when the taxes do what they were actually designed to do because our national politicians have become addicted to spending for votes and self-aggrandizement.

Seems to me that the first order of business is to prohibit the politicians from raiding the highway funds to pay for their excesses in other areas.

Ishmael

Ishmael said:

Seems to me that the first order of business is to prohibit the politicians from raiding the highway funds to pay for their excesses in other areas.

Ishmael

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That's their standard operating procedure.

Ishmael said:

Seems to me that the first order of business is to prohibit the politicians from raiding the highway funds to pay for their excesses in other areas.

Ishmael

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Starve them of funding and make them actually look at the budget and cut the dead weight and they can get off to a great start by cutting Head Start which does not work according to its own studies.

If they cannot maintain the Interstate, then they need to turn it over to local governments and possibly the private sector (where economics will create the efficiencies so foreign to government).

If your idea is to tax vehicles and people then you are saying, I want to decrease traffic thus cutting the need for Interstate. But, since we refuse to recognize reality, we will continue to increase Interstate spending creating the need for yet more tax revenue. Then you have the compelling need to provide government transportation for the displaced, hello, AMTRACK, like the Post Office, an eternal money pit requiring yet again, more taxation...

4est_4est_Gump said:

Starve them of funding and make them actually look at the budget and cut the dead weight and they can get off to a great start by cutting Head Start which does not work according to its own studies.

If they cannot maintain the Interstate, then they need to turn it over to local governments and possibly the private sector (where economics will create the efficiencies so foreign to government).

If your idea is to tax vehicles and people then you are saying, I want to decrease traffic thus cutting the need for Interstate. But, since we refuse to recognize reality, we will continue to increase Interstate spending creating the need for yet more tax revenue. Then you have the compelling need to provide government transportation for the displaced, hello, AMTRACK, like the Post Office, an eternal money pit requiring yet again, more taxation...

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If you want less of an activity, tax it. Tax it enough and you'll create an underground (black market) activity. ie. Approx. 60% of all cigarettes sold in NYC are smuggled in. And what is the governments answer to this loss of revenue? Why raise the taxes again of course.

Ishmael

Dances With Falsehoods said:

Starve them of funding and make them actually look at the budget and cut the dead weight and they can get off to a great start by cutting Head Start which does not work according to its own studies.

If they cannot maintain the Interstate, then they need to turn it over to local governments and possibly the private sector (where economics will create the efficiencies so foreign to government).

If your idea is to tax vehicles and people then you are saying, I want to decrease traffic thus cutting the need for Interstate. But, since we refuse to recognize reality, we will continue to increase Interstate spending creating the need for yet more tax revenue. Then you have the compelling need to provide government transportation for the displaced, hello, AMTRACK, like the Post Office, an eternal money pit requiring yet again, more taxation...

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"privatize teh Interstate" might be the stupidest thing to come out of your ignorant mouth all year.

Ishmael said:

If you want less of an activity, tax it. Tax it enough and you'll create an underground (black market) activity. ie. Approx. 60% of all cigarettes sold in NYC are smuggled in. And what is the governments answer to this loss of revenue? Why raise the taxes again of course.

Ishmael

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It is the answer to everything; even mandates are taxes now.

What's wrong with taxing cars, or their fuel, to pay for the roads?
IMO, "fuel" (in quotes to refer to what's collected at the pump today, but could be collected elsewhere) taxes should be high enough to provide proper maintenance plus a surplus for emergencies, like roads washed out, etc.
If a new road is needed it can be borrowed from the general fund but has to be repaid with interest and "fuel" taxes raised enough to make those payments, then lowered to the previous level, or whatever level currently keeps pace with inflation.

Of course, this is all fantasy in that legislators probably won't ever do it.

Exactly - they've had a number of commissions study all the ways to improve the Federal-aid Highway System and roundly rejected the recommendations of all of them.

All I'm saying is that there's no easy fix, and the tax isn't going away anytime soon.

about_average said:

What's wrong with taxing cars, or their fuel, to pay for the roads?
IMO, "fuel" (in quotes to refer to what's collected at the pump today, but could be collected elsewhere) taxes should be high enough to provide proper maintenance plus a surplus for emergencies, like roads washed out, etc.
If a new road is needed it can be borrowed from the general fund but has to be repaid with interest and "fuel" taxes raised enough to make those payments, then lowered to the previous level, or whatever level currently keeps pace with inflation.

Of course, this is all fantasy in that legislators probably won't ever do it.

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