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Congress Mulls Research Into a Vehicle Mileage Tax
BJ_Covert_Action writes to let us know that an Oregon congressman has filed legislation to spend $154.5M for a research project into tracking per-vehicle mileage in the US, and asks: "Do we really want the government to track our movement and driving habits on a regular basis?" "US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system... Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled fee... the [Oregon] report urged a mandate for all drivers to install GPS tracking devices that would report driving habits to roadside RFID scanning devices." Here is the bill (PDF). The article notes that the congressman's major corporate donors would likely benefit with contracts if such a program were begun.
How the fuck can ANY study cost $154,500,000 That's one hundred and fifty four million, five hundred thousand dollars. I don't care WHAT they're proposing. A traffic STUDY with that kind of price tag should get a resounding and unanimous "FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKS!" from anyone voting on it.
I normally don't use so much profanity on slashdot but it's not like I can get any more obscene than what's being proposed.