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.

Comments

Re:RFID? KISS!

[geekoid]

Yes, too fucking bad.

Sucks to be an edge case.

Undoubtedly, Farmers will be given a tax break, so them driving on their roads won't be taxed. I say this becasue they always have been in the past.
If that is true, then you are a very minor edge case.

However, if you whine enough.. I mean get a lobby together, no doubt there will be a way to do a 'long form' version that allowes you to remove some of the taxes at the end of the year.

All this is pretty much how thinks have shaken out in the past. NO guarantee, of course.