1.5 cents per mile instead of gasoline tax

Yeah..
They buy trucks for the cachet

30 MPG vehicles are not more expensive than the 23 MPG variety, all else being equal. So if in fact you actually cared about poor people (hah!), you would oppose the per mile tax since it takes away one of the simpler and straightforward ways to reduce outlay: buy a smaller, more fuel economical car.

 

Trucks used to be cheaper than automobiles.
Now they're not. Small 5pax 4 door front drivers are. People sometimes drive trucks because of ride height and because it's one helluva lot harder to twist people and cargo into a small car than it is to just sin in a truck.
There are also people in fly-over country that live in the country and actually use the truck bed for more than a convenient perch for a grill and a cooler.

Most of the economically disadvantaged people that I meet drive large RWD sedans because they're cheap, and nobody else wants them because they do not pass emissions and safety checks in more restrictive states.
Poor people always have poor options.
Priuses can shirk the annual smog checks in many 'green' states, and so they still retain more of their street value since they don't have to be auctioned off in other states, and their higher-than-normal maintenance reliability and the sincere fanaticism combine to make them more attractive to coasties, with their more oppressive gas prices.
I have the feeling that people on the left and right coasts also drive more - especially those on the left coast.
People in small towns do commute, but probably not as much as in SoCal since there are fewer places close to town that are in that sweet spot that exists between gentrified neighborhoods and neighborhoods that people only live in because they have to.

Lots of moving parts in the automotive landscape for bureaucrats to manipulate.

 

I think June 30, 2015 ending assuming Ga. Gov signs (he is expected to sign it).
I picked up this fact from the (state of) Washington Hybrid and Alternate Fuels Report.
Believe Wa.'s BEV incentive also ends around June, but OR (expected), MA, and TX are newer incentive states.

 

What about truckers and others who do a lot of interstate travel? If the state goes strictly by the odometer reading, then all of the monies go to the state where the car/truck is registered, even though not all of the road wear and tear occurred there. If using some sort of monitoring device, will the costs be allocated accordingly across the states? Too many variables, in my opinion. Not that I would ever even THINK that the local/state/federal government wouldn't implement any sort of "road use" tax/fee in a fair and equitable manner rolleyes

 

Where do you meet these people? How do you gauge. Most of the low income people that I know and see are in small cars. I know one single mom, that went from a small pick up to a versa. I know politicians like to pretend gas taxes hurt the poor, but low income workers often have to travel far for work. Changing it to a per mile basis may make it much worse. Large RWD sedans aren't going to have lower tco than a used econobox. Maybe you are thinking 10 years ago when gas was cheaper.

yep, not many poor people driving prii, although we need to smog check them in texas. What states let them skate without smog. Here its the very old cars or the pre-good emissions diesels.

California, Texas, Florida, Alaska are the long distance states. Only California has toyed with charging by mile of those states, and its probably so the government can force you to buy its gps.

 

IMHO for BEVs which never use gasoline/diesel - a tax per mile to pay for road usage does make sense - only because it addresses using BEVs to avoid paying taxes to maintain the road system ( i.e. BEV owners are free-riders in a Road system financed mainly by gasoline/diesel taxes). However, extending the tax per mile to gasoline/diesel vehicles and dropping the gasoline tax seem questionable. because it opens the door to gas/diesel driver along the border of the state who would become free-riders and it would disincentivize the need to use cleaner more fuel efficient motor vehicles. Only the residents who have registered motor vehicles in Oregon would be paying the tax per mile but vehicles registered in another jurisdiction driving through Oregon would not pay - if Oregon dropped its gas tax - it would be highly likely that gas would be cheaper in Oregon. The incentive to game the tax revenue system may lead to some drop in revenue to repair the roads and put certain regions at a handicap over others. For example, drivers might buy cheaper no-state tax gas in Oregon but register their vehicle in and live in a no-tax per mile jurisdiction.

 

i see the poor and disadvantaged on the evening news when gas prices spike. they're usually driving bronco's, buying lottery tickets and cigarettes, and complaint about the price of gasoline.

i know, it's poor sampling.

 

Was OJ poor? I think I saw him in a bronco in the most news coverage.

I can believe many poor had broncos 10 years ago, but they stopped making them around 20 years ago. There are a lot more 10 year old civics and corollas then broncos on the road. I would like to see statistics on these "poor" buying bad mpg cars. I can't believe the best or even a good way to help someone making $11/hour is to lower gas taxes but make them buy a gps for their car and pay per mile.

 

My wife works for the Salvation Army, most low income families she sees are not driving pickup trucks.

As for the fee per mile, it depends.

Right now, gas taxes go into a general fund. They are not used solely for road repair, although in my opinion they should be.
If gas taxes/mileage fees are supposed to be used to repair roads, and that is their only function, place them in a dedicated fund that can only be used for road repair.

If society also wants to use the tax system to promote efficiency/conservation, the stick with the gas tax, apply an annual fee for EVs that is equivalent to what a gas car would pay if the car got the mpg that it is rated at in terms of mpge.

And for god's sake, peg it to inflation!

 

To me this is just very preliminary experimentation with a way to raise and gather revenue.

But the most disturbing aspect is this:

"Law enforcement, for example, won't be able to access the information unless a judge says it's needed."-From the Article.

Which is to say, Law enforcement WILL be able to access the information nearly anytime they want to.

I don't know if I want a revenue raising system that allows Big Brother such an unblinking look into my personal driving habits.

 

+1

federally and in most states the gas and diesel tax is inadequate for funding the roads we have. In the federal instance the extra funds come from general revenue.

We have a severe regulatory problem in this country when it comes to roads. It takes on average 8 years to approve new federal projects, but we have a funding problem too. The federal gas tax has not been raised since 1993, and it used to be in excess of needs, now it can't repair poor infrastructure.

Many liberals and libertarians would like a higher oil tax than is needed for roads. Both see it as a good signal to use less oil, a public good that we are not doing enough of. The difference is liberals often want to spend the additional revenues libertarians want to use the money to reduce other taxes (payroll medicaid tax is a great one to cut).

Yep you can even add a higher registration fee based on odometer, but this gps thing is a really bad idea.

 

The magical word that allows such defective schemes to gain traction is "fairness". Nearly everyone believes in "fairness", so any scheme promoting "fairness" should be widely accepted....no matter how dangerous the results can be.

Let me give an historic example. The Dutch government in the years prior to WWII kept exact records of the religion of every citizen and their address. When the Nazi's took over, it was trivially easy to round up the Jews and send to the death camps. As a result, the Netherlands had 75% of the Jewish population killed.

Now I'm not saying the present Oregon efforts have any devious intent other than expanding the size of the Oregon government and revenue base. I am saying that this can slowly evolve into a system where tracking every citizen and recording their behavior only allows more opportunities for improving "fairness" in other aspects of an individual's (no longer) private life according to government decree. Sorry to revert to Godwin's law here, but there is a fundamental point to drive home.

 

A common pool resource like our road systems needs a revenue system to support and maintain it. With Federal dollars support shrinking it is up to local jurisdictions to raise the monies necessary to maintain and support local road systems. Any revenue collection system needs a way to enforce collection of revenues for all paying participants - so some privacy is lost at the point of revenue collection regardless. The question is how much privacy is lost, who are paying and why. For example, on a toll road information is collected on where your vehicle entered and where it left the Toll system. Is the information collected necessary for revenue collection or is it overkilled? What is the risk that the data could be used for nefarious way? With respect to those who are driving on the road system but are not paying -- would those who use the road system but do not pay a tax per mile Free riders (moochers)? For example, would an emergency vehicle to help those who get into accidents along the highway, a snow removal truck, or road construction may log miles be free riders or would they pay the same tax per miles regardless? Could exempting an official state government vehicle from the tax per mile lead to abuse by state government employees who seek to game the system (especially if the fox is guarding the hen house)? The wear and tear on the road system cause by a vehicle driving on it depends on the vehicle and how it is driven - A fully loaded dump truck causes more wear and tear at 60 mph than a compact sedan going at 60 mph. But when two compact sedans crash into each other on a roadway - they can cause more damage to that roadway than a fully loaded dump truck being driven safely through that same roadway.

 

What ... they'r not going to let all their 40 ton - 18 wheeler's sign up for 1.5¢ per mile taxation too !? That's SOOooo unfair. C'mon if they love the plan ... let's show REAL love.

.

 

It's hard to beat the normal cents/gal gasoline tax, makes sense, and then the ~$100/yr addon for BEV.

In Virginia, the rural drivers feel the gaso tax is unfair because they need SUV's and they have to put a lot of miles to get to jobs/stores etc. So instead of increasing gaso tax, we increased sales taxes for roads, and further we increased the sales tax selectively on the more developed parts of the state, not the rural parts. A little unusual, but this was possible because in Va. the rural portion of the state has historically had the political power and has been able to keep it, except for statewide votes.

 

Everyone (maybe nearly everyone) on this forum agrees with those points. The "why" is established, the "how" is the issue.

Enforcement methods range from the trivial (gas tax at the pump, electric tax at the outlet and energy taxes for every other fuel such as H2, natural gas, or even cow farts) that needs extremely minimal state resources. The other extreme is a monitoring system for every vehicle and vehicle operator requiring huge state infrastructure that easily could add a huge tax burden far beyond what is present now. No privacy needs to be lost.

Maybe the state increases revenue by selling the vehicle movement information to marketing companies. These in turn use it to selectively target you to spend money on extracted behavior. I sure get a lot of calls and flyers from information sold by Toyota dealers to other car dealers and "warranty" companies knowing when my present warranty coverages end. At the end of the day, all that vehicle tracking data is worth money to someone willing to exploit it. Presently we are learning the hard way how our standard of living is degraded by all manner of organizations...including the government...using data to increase their bottom line at the expense of ours. If it is not outlawed....it is exploited.

Who is driving that is not paying? What fuel is free? The fairest possible system I could think of is charging for the fuel (whatever form it takes) at the point of sale. How is this not fair? (Note--check for how much electricity is taxed compared to gas before claiming EV or PHEV owners are getting free road system use. The Electricity taxes go in the same bucket as gas taxes by the way. The EV free rider claim was bogus the day it was first claimed.)

This is mostly an irrelevant point. Taxing the mileage on a government vehicle is just circular logic. The mileage tax money collected from the government matches the money spend by the government paying this tax. The fact that two sedans crash into each other causes road damage is secondary to the loss of lives involved. No tax scheme will fix that.

 

since gas tax isn't dedicated to road maintenance and repair, it should be eliminated, and double the cigarette tax.

 

Why no.

Let's face it this tax is 100% politics but its also news.

I had hoped in my breakdown on who would be against (liberals and libertarians) it was clear that these belong in independant votors and both major parties. said this in your OP link

Oregon Taxing EVs, Hybrids for Road Use | TheDetroitBureau.com

First statement, sure, but why require special invasive equipment that costs money. Why not simply have a flat or odometer based fee that can be higher for efficient vehicles? But is it fair that my tax money goes to support war efforts based on the carter doctrine (war for oil) when I disagree with it. With less than 1% of vehicles plug-in in oregon, I don't buy the argument that this complicated scheme is for "fairness. Kill the loopholes for fairness, don't add a complicated new taxing scheme.

The second is simply false. Ability to maintain the roads has nothing to do with adding new devices to track cars. Siply raising the gas tax is the simplest solution, but its unpopular. This is a bait and switch.

Finally the last part is the most galling. It requires not just a driver to be tracked but to keep all their gas reciepts and turn them over to the government. No one is going to do this voluntarily if they get average or above fuel economy, so the price is starting artificially low, then it becomes mandatory and they (oregon government) raise it.

 

I need some more money for roads. But I'm unwilling to offend my constituents by raising the gas tax. So I'll just say I've lowered your taxes and vote yes to a tax that will have to be paid in a big chunk in the future. Of course it favors the good 'ol boys and their high mileage cars and the rural folks.

Classic legislative slight of hand from the gutless I'll gerrymander myself into power politicians.

If they want to do it, why not just snag the mileage on the car at the point it is hooked up for its emissions check. Most states have the beginning miles info on hand when a car is registered and this would be a non-burdensome way to add an extra tax to high efficiency vehicles. Just calculate by subtracting last years mileage from this years mileage and multiply by the rate and add it to the state registration bill. No bureaucracy needed.