Slashdot Mirror
Oregon Considers GPS-based Road Taxes
Oregon is considering instituting a road tax - a tax based on the mileage driven within the state. The tax would be implemented with mandatory GPS boxes in each vehicle recording the mileage driven in Oregon. We've done a couple of previous stories on Great Britain's initiatives in this area.
Thankfully, this is a law "being considered" by legislators who haven't yet been hit with the reality that this tax is unenforcable, and therefore won't work.
The problem is, the "Good Faith and Credit Clause" of the U.S. Constitution means that licenses issed by any state are valid in all fifty. What's more, a car with California plates can legally drive on Oregon roads.
The thing is, Oregon cannot require California-registered cars (or cars registered to any of the 49 other states) to have their tracking devices.
Another cause of death: Suddenly every road in the state effectively becomes a toll road. That'll cost them in federal highway funds, as toll roads in theory are supposed to be spending those tolls on their own repairs. And, you can surely bet the neighboring states' representives will see to it that Oregon loses all their highway funds for implamenting this kind of tax.
So, it's a nice chance to beat up a clueless state legislator or two for getting a little too 1984-ish on us... but there's really nothing to fear here. This law is D.O.A.
This GPS thing assumes that every mile driven inside Oregon is somehow a public road. I imagine some Oregonians have large ranches, and they can rack up some miles "riding fences." For that matter, would horses have to wear the silly thing?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Maybe the rich snobs in their Lincoln Navigators and Ford Excursions don't like paying more than the poor guy in the Geo Metro?
Ok, I originally come from Pennsylvania which tends to have rather crappy interstate roads, and there's a simple reason for it - large tractor-trailers.
Pennsylvania a while back passed a law to eliminate studded tires from the road. Sad reality is that roads go worse, as there was more heavy truck traffic. Studded tires didn't really do anything.
If you want to cut costs on maintaining roads and raise money to do so, here's my suggestion:
Again, most of the wear and tear on roads in Pennsylvania is caused by out-of-state heavy-load trucks. Taxing your own citizens based on the mileage they drive their passenger cars taxes the wrong end of people and simply creates more excuses to vacate your state.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
What's really sad about this, is that rich people are still less affected (as a percentage of their income) than poor people are. And before you say that poor people can just use Tri-Met or some other public transport, remember how much of Oregon is rural.
By the way, if I still lived there, my first challenge to that law would be to have them prove that my car wasn't on a flatbed truck when it was moving around, with the flatbed truck presumably reporting its own movements for taxation purposes, already. And I'd like to see them try to charge me for building an encasing box for the unit to block GPS reception when I'm not at the inspection site, if they win that battle.
Get off my launchpad!
Actually only two in seven people now in Oregon can read English.
As a long time Oregon resident, let me fill in the slashdotters with some background.
One: Oregonians are poor. We have the highest unemployment rate in the country. When you run out of unemployment benefits, you automatically get taken off the unemployment rolls and become 'employed'. Real unemployment is 15-20 percent. Our forest product, tourist, fishing, and electronic industries are decimated.
Two: Oregonians are dumb. We have the shortest school year in the country and are about to shorten it another twenty or so days. We have one of the highest dropout rates in the USA. Most of the jobs requiring advanced skills and education to people moving here from other places.
Three: Oregonians are cheap. We voted down all major tax increases in the past ten years. We defeated the sales tax proposals put forth by our betters five times in the past twenty years. Being cheap is a direct result of being poor and dumb.
Four: Oregon is big. Bigger than New England. A third of the people live in the Portland metro area; one third live in other 'cities'; and the rest live far out in the country and drive lots of miles.
Five: Our state legislators are either over-educated Jane Jacobs followers from Portland or Eugene (the Dems) or dumb-as-dirt bible-thumping morons from the woods (the Repubs). Each side hates each other and would gladly shut down the state rather than cooperate or give an inch on anything. Both sides pride themselves on coming up with truly dumb laws to show that they are meaner than the other side. For example, get caught with any amount of voter-approved medical mar1juana, lose your driver's license for a year.
Or, drop out of high school at age sixteen? Can't get a driver's license until you're twenty-one.
To point of all this? Don't take anything that the Oregonians say or do seriously.