US Contemplating 'Vehicle Miles Traveled' Tax

dawgs72 writes "This week the Congressional Budget Office released a report saying that taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues, and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance. The proposed tax would be enforced through the use of electronic metering devices installed on all vehicles. The mileage tax is being considered instead of an increase in the gas tax in order to tax hybrids, EVs, and conventional automobiles equally."

Comments

Sounds like a headache

[rwa2]

So, um, how are they going to split that between county, state, and federally-funded roads?

Infrastructure is infrastructure. Everyone benefits from having it. Putting this kind of administrative overhead on it just makes it more expensive *and* takes away the benefit.

I think the real problem is that people mostly can't afford to live close to where they work. This leads to a lot of inefficiency, as they waste lots of time and energy driving back and forth from their cheap suburbs to the higher rent districts that pay just barely enough to survive if you live a neighborhood a tier or two away. Relatively cheap transportation sorta creates this situation, but there has got to be better ways to solve this than by making transportation more expensive with all of this metering equipment.

Make cities denser, cheaper, more accessible to families with better schools & playgrounds, etc. Get rid of suburban sprawl by zoning more parks and greenways. Maybe build some summer cottages / timeshares so people can still get away "to the country". Done! All the other countries are doing it :-P

Re:Sounds like a headache

[bberens]

We already pay for infrastructure with fuel taxes and by paying for vehicle registrations. If we need more money for infrastructure we have the facilities in place to raise revenue for infrastructure: raise fuel and registration taxes. This is good because it encourages energy efficiency and smaller vehicles for the consumer (which also cause less wear and tear). This is just a case of some vendor making a product and trying to get millions of units sold and/or more big brother. Take your pick.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[garcia]

Because my "sprawling" 1280 sq ft. home in the suburbs (where I ride the bus 20 miles each way) costs me $723/month whereas rent would be over $1000/month and a mortgage would be well in excess of $1000/month in the city?

Re:Sounds like a headache

[HockeyPuck]

Get rid of suburban sprawl by zoning more parks and greenways.

Hmm then you won't have any space in the cities for people to live. Plus as one of those that lives in suburbia, I like having a backyard to bbq in, grow a garden, throw a ball with my kid or sit on my patio watching the birds in my birdfeeder.

If I lived in an apartment/condo highrise, I won't have those aspects to the quality of my life. Sure there are rooftop gardens and community parks. But when you live in a highrise with a 1000 other people, how much space on the rooftop garden can you reasonably get? Btw, I also have windows on all four sides of my house, which is wonderful for the indoor plants without using grow lights.

Btw, what are the prices of a condo in NYC that overlook Central Park? I bet it's quite a bit more than my humble home in suburbia.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[Firehed]

Not to mention that not everyone wants to live in a city. My dad commutes an hour each way to/from work simply because my parents wanted to live somewhere rural and quiet, and actually have some land. Both my brother and I are out of school so that's irrelevant; it has nothing to do with the practicality of living in a city. A lot of people just hate that kind of environment. If they wanted to live near the office they could afford to do so, they just don't want that.

A better investment would be improving other infrastructure so that telecommuting is more practical. Maybe not five days a week (for most people, it's very hard to keep on task without spending at least a day a week in the office), but even if it's only useful one day a week you're still removing 20% of the commuting. Never mind that people will be happier because they can spend more time with their kids/spouses/etc, not wasting their own time driving around, and can avoid at least some office politics. And, oh yeah, we have better communications infrastructure, which helps us stay relevant to the rest of the world.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[rwa2]

Meh, I think it's kinda absurd that everyone would live in a contiguous suburban metropolitan complex that extends from Virginia to Maine, and commute an hour each way to work, and consume 20-40 gallons of gas a week between two vehicles just to keep up with the nominal pace of life. Yet here we are.

It's kinda sad that people haven't really figured out how to get along in close proximity with each other, that we've kind of moved from huts and even row houses to single family detached homes with picket fences, and we still sick the HOA on each other at every opportunity. But that's a political problem, and one that probably deserves a political solution, or better yet a diplomatic one (does anyone even do diplomacy these days? or is that considered "weak"?).

Anyway, this whole suburban sprawl problem was more or less inadvertently created by the Eisenhower Interstate System anyway, where it made it cheaper to build out instead of up. So everyone who could afford to (by all this new infrastructure) left the city for the rolling meadows (clear-cutting the trees and naming the streets after them when necessary) the US cities were kinda left to rot and decay. But the city still has the draw of industry and business around what little pieces of "cultural" core remained, maybe surrounded by a few layers of impoverished neighborhoods that couldn't make the rush and were abandoned by the more affluent tax base. And now that the interstates are clogged up (including all of the extra "interstates" they built to deal with the extra rush-hour-only load), the problem is finally bad enough for people to start successfully promoting "smart growth" initiatives, where population centers build up around mass transit instead of out.

In any case, I think the problem is more about how we build our living/working arrangements, rather than our transportation system (which had no small part in determining how our living/working arrangements got so screwed up in the first place). But tweaking the transportation system probably isn't going to directly address the real problem of being too spread out and wasting too much resources and energy crossing acres of dull suburban wasteland to get to the few places worth going to.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[AxemRed]

Not all of us can afford a decent quality apartment downtown, let alone a private school for our kids. And not all of us live in cities with decent public transit. I live in a house in the suburbs mostly because it was my best option for my money.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[Infernal Device]

The real problem is that people want sprawling houses, and are not comfortable living in smaller places.

That's a pretty gross generalization.

I mean, why bother living in a small apartment downtown when I can get a sprawling, waste of space out in the 'burbs, and drive 20 miles each way?

This depends on the conditions in the downtown area. In my experience, a house in the suburbs is considerably cheaper than an apartment downtown.

People raise kids in NYC and in other big cities. You can just put your kids in a private school, and they can take the train or the bus to get to where they want.

Only if you're made of money. The vast majority of people would not be able to afford a private school for their children.

No, I think this is a great idea. Some of us ride bikes and take buses and trains. And we do not live out in suburbs, and even live in neighborhoods which are well connected with good, public transportation.

Terrific. Now bring that to my city and we might sign on to it. But don't hold your breath - the politics behind public transportation are such that the people who actually need are usually the ones who can't afford it and politicians are loathe to do anything that actually affects rich people.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[erroneus]

That's an interesting tangent you take. So you are saying the idea that people want to raise their families in suburbs has to do with racism? Wow. Quite a conclusion you jump to there. But in defence of "white people" everywhere I have to say this:

Even black city cab drivers don't [prefer] to pick up black passengers. That can't be just "racism" as much as it is a belief that they are dangerous or otherwise untrustworthy. That reputation, even amongst themselves, has to have come about somehow. Regardless of any given causes or sources, there is a general fear of black people based on their reputations for crime and violence. I am not saying it is deserved or to be believed. I am saying the reputation exists. Is it racism? Tough call. I can say that as a person who is discriminated against based on his ethnicity as well as his sex that it's "not fair" but I have no defence against it -- white males are also presumed evil and predetermined to be untrustworthy in many circles.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[KingMotley]

Sure, that might work for little cities like Vancouver.

Now try the same thing with the city I am from (Chicago, IL), with 6 times that population. You can't just take your 30ish story buildings and turn them into 180 story buildings. Nor will you have enough space for grocery stores 6 times the size, nor will the parks accommodate 6 times the number of people, roads accommodating 6 times the number of cars, buses, trains, etc.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[mozumder]

Crime doesn't come from density, but from poor people.

Manhattan has surprisingly low crime now that rent starts at $1800/month, instead of $80/month like it used to be in the 70's.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[qbzzt]

How are they going to bastardize the interstate commerce clause to force this piece of shit regulation on the states and the citizens of each state?

They won't require it. They'll just threaten to withhold interstate funding from any state that refuses to comply.

Re:Sounds like a headache

[green1]

No, the problem is that people living in those sprawling houses aren't usually willing to pay the true costs to do so.

I have no problem with people having the sprawling mansion in the country. What I have a problem with is that I have to pay for them to do so. I pay the same amount per month for garbage collection, recycling, water, and sewer that they do, but the cost to deliver those services actually costs less to my house closer in than it does to theirs further out.

This is why my taxes go up every single year, and by more than inflation. It's because the taxes paid by those in the new communities on the outskirts of the city do not cover the costs associated with providing them the services, so they raise everyone's taxes to compensate.

Live wherever you like, live in whatever type of house you like. But don't pass your costs on to me.

Double dipping?

[Seumas]

Isn't this already covered by the gas tax, which is inherently incurred on a "per mile" (gallon, really) basis?

Anything that can be taxed, will. Those things which can not be taxed will be fined.

Re:Double dipping?

[leehwtsohg]

Yes, basically it is a way to additionally tax fuel efficient vehicles. Something like an anti-fuel-efficiency tax.

Re:Double dipping?

[_0xd0ad]

It's still double dipping. They're considering it instead of an increase in the current gas tax.

If they eliminated the gas tax and replaced it with this, their stated reason would be an acceptable one.

Re:Double dipping?

[PhotoJim]

Easily solved. Increase the gas tax. Not only does this restore the revenue, but it creates greater incentive for those who drive inefficient vehicles to change to more efficient ones.

A mileage tax might seem to make sense in some ways, but imagine the logistics of collecting. Unless you are going to make every road a toll road (and good luck with that project), a fuel tax increase is going to be far easier and cheaper to implement.

All this effort, just to avoid the real problem...

[wierd_w]

That being, that they (State and federal governments) are spending too much money already.

How about they do something a little more useful, like impose a moratorium on new expenditures until the economic crisis is over?

Oh dear-- I just imagined government workers being cautious with other people's money! How silly of me!

Re:Why federal, again?

[Batmunk2000]

Constitution? We still have one of those?

Re:All this effort, just to avoid the real problem

[MozeeToby]

Let me start by saying, flat out, that I'm not trying to troll or start a war here, but what exactly would you have them cut?

It's a fact that most fiscal conservatives, when asked what they would have the government cut can't name a single program to cut that is both A) large enough to have an impact, and B) not political suicide to cut. Would you take benefits away from people on a fixed income, who were promised and rely on that income and those benefits to make it through the month? Would you cut spending on military and defense? Would you tell young people that Social Security won't be there for them when they are elderly, and then tell them to keep paying in anyway? Cut funding for sciences and eduction? NASA?

It's very easy to say "we should be spending less". It's a lot harder to identify areas to be cut that will make a difference and that people aren't so passionate about that the cuts won't be reversed in 4 years or less.