Colorado Piloting Eliminating Gas Tax

Enjoy this drive.

Tesla’s fascinating self-driving car video shows us exactly what the vehicle ‘sees’




iPhone ?

 

I can see where you're coming from here. But what, then (if anything) would you do to reduce smoking? Would you not impose a sin tax? If you would, what would you spend the money on? And if you wouldn't, how would you absorb the costs to government that smoking creates (I realise this is less of a problem in the US than in other countries, but there are still costs to government created by smoking)? Or do you think that the early deaths caused by smoking - and the resultant reductions in pension costs - outweigh the costs of lost income tax revenue and health expenditure?

But wouldn't that structure be quite a good thing? Your costs in rail development are primarily up-front: you need a lot of money at the start to build the railway, and then smaller amounts of money to operate and maintain it. So if your gas taxes drive people off the road, it means you get your money at the start, when you need it, and then that income drops off as you need less. Also, of course, a lot of the money that people are no longer paying in gas tax they'll be spending on train tickets.

Yeah, the stadium thing is odd. In Britain, the soccer stadium is the club's responsibility, not the government's.

I can see your point on the sales, property and income taxes.

But a tax that's adequate to encourage reductions in fuel use would pay for a hell of a lot more than just roads. If your gas tax is currently funding roads and not discouraging people from buying Dodge Rams or Ford F50s or whatever when you're paying $1.50 per gallon, then you're going to have a vast income surplus if you impose a level of tax close to European levels, and end up paying $6-8 per US gallon. And it's clear that those are the sort of prices you need to get decent take-up on hybrids and tiny engines and electric cars.

Transportation accounts for around 14% of global CO2 emissions, and all of shipping accounts for about 3% of global CO2 emissions. I suspect the 15 ships figure is one of those Facebook feed things.

Going after cars is significant, because there's a lot that can be done. But yes, going after electricity generation would have a bigger impact.

 

There's always decirculating surpluses, which would effectively give everyone that money. Alternately, use that surplus to offset the negative effects on the poor that such a high gas tax would cause, by applying it to offset the costs of a progressive income tax.

 

Ah, yes. That's how the now-abandoned carbon tax in Australia was going to work: you'd pay more for your electricity, but a portion of the money raised would go into grants for low-income families so that they were not worse off, but they were still encouraged to use less energy.

 

I have to say that I have yet to see a rail based transit system that "costs smaller amounts" of money to operate, if by smaller you mean reasonable and economical. When I lived in Seattle and took the heavy rail Sounder (a duplicate of MetroLink in SoCal) a full fare to ride was about $9 a day (3 zones, round trip). The actual cost of operations was over $48 x 2 = $96 ($48 for a one way "trip" - the unit of measure used). When the infrastructure cost was added in, the cost per trip (amortized over 30 years) was over $500 (per "trip"). A 3 zone helicopter "trip" was quoted to be in the neighborhood of $260, and the helio seated four.

Again. Nothing the gub'ment does is cheap or efficient. And taxes are often con games run on people who cannot or do not want the services provided with the money. That said, payday for California State employees is the last business day of the month, and they never fail to hand over the warrant (check) when asked. The line coming out of the accounting office on that day is all smiles!

 

Have you looked at foreign countries? I ask because in the cities I've lived in or spent a lot of time in, mostly in East Asia, mass transport systems are very cost-effective.

 

Citation needed on those costs.

 

Although, when you get people that want to live in the country as a lifestyle choice, and not be a farmer (which would be another reason to have a truck, a lot of farm work requiring one anyway), taxation making it more expensive to make that lifestyle choice will pull them closer into infrastructure, and they won't need to have a truck to go to the grocery store.

Also, when will road construction end? I've never seen a road project end, they keep adding new roads, or having to stop and fix the old ones.

 

Here is an analysis of the North Sounder Line. My comment is reflective of the South Sounder Line, for which I did environmental and economic analysis for an extension. Similar numbers. Sound Transit Sounder Commuter Rail: Promises vs. Performance

 

If you implement road tax by the mile it's individualized. First the government won't pay then the poor the special interest will lobby to reduce there tax. In the end the same heavily taxed group will bear the cost of road repair. It gives people a way to escape paying there fair share and that will be the result.

 

Ahha, yes. I hope you're all having a lovely Thanksgiving.

Yes, I used to really enjoy doing that when I had my Prius. People think it's all sackcloth-and-ashes, and they're really surprised when it actually turns out to be a nice way to travel.

Fair enough. It's not what I'd do, but I can see your logic.

Yes, that's true. When I first lived in Tianjin and travelled to Beijing regularly, Beijing had two metro lines. Now it has, I think, 14, and it's still building. Although, that said, its population has grown from less than 10 million to well over 20 million in that time, so it really does need it.

While I'm sure they'll be hit harder than me by increased fuel costs, I can live with that. Similarly, I'm sure they can live with the fact that, for the price of my sensible four-bedroom house in Sydney, I could buy several thousand acres in rural Colorado. But I can walk to the supermarket. We all have costs associated with the lifestyles we choose.

And anyway, gas taxes will still give them a choice: they can buy a relatively economical four-wheel-drive from Japan or Germany, or they can buy some sort of gimassive comedy V8.

Haha! Very well put!

Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving.

 

When visiting the parents in North Carolina, I fill the tank at the Virginia border. This is enough to get to their place near NC's southern tip and back to Va. How is NC suppose to get the tax money I paid to Va to cover my use of their roads? Likewise, many here would fill up in NJ before the new tax rate, when given a chance, some would take a trip to NJ just for the fuel. So people are already paying fuel taxes to one state, but using the roads in another. This hasn't become an issue that would greatly unbalance the system considering most of the fuel is bought in the state where it is used.

Using odometer readings for per mile tax will result in some paying for miles, over some tax free limit, driven out of state. But this isn't enough to break what is the easiest and cheapest way of calculating such a tax, and there are methods to track out of state miles for those who do drive a lot out of state.

The issue will arise on how to have a plug in car to help cover the expenses for its use of the road. High efficiency vehicles alone can reduce the fuel tax income to the point that the amount isn't enough to cover road expenses.

There is no separate fund for raod maintenance at the federal level that fuel taxes goes into. It just goes into the general fund. With the federal gas tax being too low to meet maintenance costs, other tax proceeds or debt covers the rest.

This would only work if the cost of use covered all the exteranlities for each transportation. These would include the cost to clean up the environment from damage caused by petroleum use, to the healthcare costs resulting from that use, to even the military interventions for maintaining US corporate control of it. During the second Iraq war, an estimate of $10 to $15 a gallon for petrol to cover those externalities was put forth.

I believe that German highway patrol officers are equipped with a roadside THC test.

That is only profitable by ignoring the externalities.
Not taxing cigarettes has the same issue.

Tax deductions for fuel use already does this in regards to taxes on the fuel.

 

I read up on the "German roadside THC test." The test uses immunoassay, and looks like it is unreliable (particularly a very high rate of false negatives) compared to gas chromatography analysis (which is NEVER wrong). In regulated drug testing, immunoassay testing may only be used for initial screening, is substance specific and returns a qualitative result, not a quantitative result. I know that in Washington State, THC levels are standardized in the regulation to define "under the influence," just like for alcohol. Therefore, THC itself must be measured, or the test used must be 1:1 correlated between metabolites and the actual bloodstream levels of the substance.

 

An immunoassay drug test once returned a false positive for opiates for me. A basic screening test is better than nothing at this time.

Highway Trust Fund - Wikipedia
I was wrong. Do the states have similar funds?
The ad link in your post leads to a book on highway funding at Walmart, for the curious.

Any comment on the rest of my post?

 

Every state is a little different. Some commingle the transportation taxes and fees into that States General fund.

Others have a true segregated highway trust fund that is solely funded by fuel taxes and licensing fees. WI is a segregated trust fund state. MN is not and a portion of its transportation budget comes from the General fund versus what is collected withe the gas tax and licensing fees.

Both of those states are running transportation funding annual deficits now and are bonding/borrowing to fill the voids. In WI 30-35% of annual highway fund collections now goes to service debt. The Governor won't do anything to fix it and it's just getting worse.


iPhone ?

 

False positives are the bane of immunoassay tests. That's why they are useful as screening tests only. Gas chromatography, on the other hand is dead bang! accurate.

And you contradict yourself when you say immunoassay tests are better than nothing. A false positive is 100% wrong for you. That might mean jail time. "No test" (guessing) is at least 50% accurate when you consider (you are either positive or not, take your pick). Once you have a false positive, there is no way to catch up with the negative effect on the averages, no matter how many tests you do.

Opiates, as well, are a special case in drug testing, but that's another subject.