My jaw dropped this morning on reading a wire service story in the St. Pete Times that several states and the obscure National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing had been discussing way to stabilize revenue streams for transportation project (fair enough) and had thought up an idea to put a GPS device in all our cars to report our mileage so it could be taxed. I guess this was the Times' gentle way of saying, "Who needs caffeine? We'll just give you more weird news!"
This seems to be a stupid idea: taxing people no matter how much they reduce gas usage. In fact, it appears that the motivation for this idea is that it would be horrid if people started buying higher-mileage cars, because that would mean they'd be paying less in gas taxes.
Let me start with some basics I've gathered with a quick search around the web:
- Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski (
R D) appears to be out in front on this proposal, and it's in Oregon where the state DOT had a test of GPS reporting of mileage - The idea has been discussed in other states--North Carolina, California, Idaho, Rhode Island. (Only one of those has a Democratic governor.) The Ashville Citizen-Times takes a dim view of the proposal, pointing out that the NC legislature commonly raids the transportation trust fund for other purposes. Gee, I wonder if that happens in other states...
- The national commission chair, Robert Atkinson, has served as a Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute and an advisory board member of the Reason Foundation Mobility Project, among other capacities. The commission's membership is mostly from private industry, with a smattering of local elected officials (one county commissioner, one ward leader (???), an official of the New York City MTA, and a member of the Texas House of Reps), and one staff member from Reason.
This is a horrid idea, for a number of reasons.
- A mileage tax would reduce incentives to conserve. Unlike a gas tax or a congestion tax, it treats all driving the same. Whether you drive a gas guzzler or an efficient vehicle, you pay the same.
- It's much easier to cheat on a mileage tax than a gas tax. A gas tax is collected at the pump. A mileage tax would require either odometer checks or a GPS device, as in the Oregon DOT experiment. If you think there is corruption with emissions-check systems in your state, just wait until you see what happens with odometer or GPS fraud!
- Any mileage tax implemented with GPS would be an infringement on privacy. I'm sure that Dick Cheney would have loved to have this for the last 8 years. No thank you!
If you live in Oregon, do what you can to kill it. And wherever you live, let us all know in comments if this has started to raise its head in your area.
Since the commission's chair, Robert Atkinson, wrote a piece posted on DailyKos last month by the Breakthrough Institute (DKos page), I'll be curious to see if they or Atkinson will respond in comments.
Update: Yikes on the party identification error above. Mea culpa.