So we do the right thing by getting hybrids, then...

[GummyBearz]

https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/california-readies-pay-as-you-drive-tax-test-175305098.html

From the article:

"The move makes California the largest state to explore how modern technology might replace the dwindling money from gasoline taxes used to build and maintain roads, thanks to ever-more efficient vehicles and less driving overall. Congress has been forced to fill the gap at the federal level with billions of dollars in temporary funding; in California, where residents pay 48.5 cents on the gallon in state gasoline taxes worth more than $3 billion a year, the state has borrowed from those revenues in recent years to cover shortfalls elsewhere."


Oook, so we did the right thing and got more fuel efficient, we already pay a higher gas tax than other states for "cleaner gasoline", and now here is the real kicker. The higher taxes we have been paying in order to maintain and build roads, were borrowed in order to cover other budget shortfalls... so now they want to tax every mile we drive... call me a god damn prophet, but I foresee them using this new tax to also pay for OTHER SHIT than road building and repair.

This may not be a second thought for people with good public transit (ie. san francisco, new york), but its pissing me off in LA

[djean111]

1. Won't people start car pooling, using public transportation, and driving less, thereby

generating less taxes? Which is good for emissions and whatever, but then they will still have to look for revenue elsewhere or make the miles tax Draconian.

[GummyBearz]

2. We already do

Most people at my work (and its a very large company) already car pool, telecommute, drive hybrids, etc. Public transportation is out of the question due to LA's crap infrastructure.

So its really just another tax on the lower middle class. Those who drive to work, but barely make ends meet... now they have less money every month. The rich wont notice it at all, but the lower middle class commuting from affordable Riverside to LA for work (a long drive that many do make) will feel it

[Tweedy]

4. Metro

The metro is quite nice. But, you are right at the federal level we need to find additional ways to fund the highway trust fund.

[GummyBearz]

8. I tried

I tried the metro. My company even subsidizes it. It just didn't work.

Metro option 1: I drive out of the way to the blue line, take it up to the green line, get dropped off a mile from work.

Metro option 2: I drive to the metrolink train, take it to the green line, get off in norwalk and take a shuttle a few blocks to connect with the other side of the green line, get dropped off a mile from work.


Both options were 2+ hours commute and included driving anyway. This is why I say LA public transit infrastructure sucks.

[Tweedy]

16. Yuck

That sucks. Are you in a situation where you could move closer to a metro station? If not, you have got the mother lode of a horrible LA commute.

[dionysus]

55. public transit is nice if done well, but can be a nightmare. My buddy was forced to use it when he

moved to Boston. He lived 15 minutes by car from the office, but traffic is insane and even if you buy an uber expensive parking permit, you're not guaranteed a space anywhere near where you're going, so he decided to take public transit. he'd have to drive to a place to get on the train then travel into the city, then walk to work. It took an average of 1.5 hours each way. guy was leaving at 7am and getting home after 7pm every day. I'd go nuts.

Here, we have no subways, but busses that run everywhere. if I wanted to take a bus to where my old office was, which was 15-20 min by car, I'd have to walk 3/4 of a mile to the bus stop, take a bus downtown, wait to switch busses, then eventually get where I was going and walk the remaining few blocks to the office. It would take well over an hour from when I left my house. sure, it's only $1.50 each way, but you have to figure on whether the extra few hours of commute are worth saving the money. in the winter they do a terrible job of plowing the sidewalks, so walkng tot he bus stop would take forever and get you caked in snow and slush.

[Retrograde]

59. CalTrain on the SF Peninsula is at capacity

at least on weekday mornings. There are calls to run more and faster trains, but that requires disrupting traffic in Peninsula cities (which are where they are because of the train) or significant $$$ spent on regrading the tracks. It's being done - slowly - but there's only a finite amount of money to spend.

The population is soaring. High-density housing is being built (good) but those people have to work, shop, and play someplace, and getting there gets worse every month.

[ManiacJoe]

3. A mileage tax is a reasonable thing to replace the gas tax with.

Last edited Sat Oct 18, 2014, 05:36 AM - Edit history (1)

The concept is taxing the road users to maintain the roads. Putting the tax in the fuel sales was an easy and fair way to do it way back when. Now that we have moved into an age where fuel consumption is no longer directly related to road use, the method of taxing the road users needs to be rethought.

Moving the tax money away from its intended use is a bad thing, but it is not related to the method of taxation.

Using less fuel is a good thing from the point of view of the environment. Not paying your fair share of the road maintenance is a bad thing.

[NutmegYankee]

20. It's not a "right to privacy" compatible proposal.

Your car would have to be programmed to report your driving habits to the Government or you'd have to self report. And then there is the issue with older cars with non-working odometers. I drove a car for 7 years without logging a single new mile. I just did my oil changes on a date schedule.

[ManiacJoe]

24. It is neither compatible nor noncompatible.

Distance traveled discloses nothing to anyone regarding privacy. At least, not without linking it to something else like dates and times, which would not be needed for tax purposes.

[NutmegYankee]

28. How do we know that only distance traveled will be all that's downloaded?

GPS is capable of storing much more. And like all intrusions, I'm sure "special" access to that data will be enabled, meaning it is logged for law enforcement and easily hackable.

[ManiacJoe]

35. How do we know that distance will not be the only data stored for later download?

The devil is in the details. Talk to the folks writing the specs.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

38. The people writing the specs will be the manufacturers and

they will include a back door if it means getting a law passed to force people to buy their products.

Not to mention the GOP would love to run against this.

[rogerashton]

26. You think you have privacy now?

You must not have a cell phone.

[NutmegYankee]

27. I don't carry my cellphone with me every place I go. nt

[rogerashton]

37. When you do carry it

"they" know where you are, and when. Most people do take their cellphones when they go somewhere in the car. (What is a mobile for -- to leave it in the house next to the land-line?) Highway-use data could be protected as much public data is: only available to the authorities on the basis of a warrant with probable cause. Of course, that can be hacked or the "probable cause" faked, but so can that other public data, plus your facebook data, Google data, DU data. Face it: if you live a normal life, and "they" want to find you, they can.

I've been through this a few times with my students. Many economists -- and I am one -- advocate substituting mileage charges adjusted for congestion for the gas tax. Uncongested roads should be free, or very cheap. The idea is that the congestion adjustment creates an incentive to reduce congestion, thus saving valuable time and gasoline and saving money from building parallel highways that just get congested anyway. It would require a lot of info, but that's the kind of world we are living in. We are going to get the disadvantages of an information society in any case. And estimates say that the net benefits of congestion-adjusted mileage charges would be substantial.

[rogerashton]

50. Check the link

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-16/local-police-tracking-mobile-phones-using-military-gear.html

[NutmegYankee]

51. I know. I just don't justify further abuses of our civil rights based on these criminal uses.

The mileage tax proposals are 1984 wet dreams.

[woo me with science]

61. How is that an argument?

We have little privacy now, so let's sign up for less privacy?

[rogerashton]

64. In economic terms, opportunity cost=zero.

We have nothing to lose. Is there something you don't understand about that?

Let me expand on the point. In the world of the present and future, privacy simply does not exist; therefore, in the real world, issues of privacy are irrelevant. If you could choose, perhaps you would choose to live in the past -- and perhaps that would be the right choice. But that choice is not available.

Further: bear in mind that the NAZIS did not need modern information technology to carry out their villainy. The advanced information system they used comprised: filing cabinets. Soviets, likewise. Khmer rouge, not even that, I think.

The objective must be to get a government that is not murderous. (Notice I don't say: a government we can trust. Just one that stops short of short of crimes against humanity.) If we cannot get a government of that kind, limiting their access to "private" information (even if possible) would not save us. If we can get a government that is not murderous, limiting that government's access to "private" information will do no good, and probably will do harm.

A "sarcasm" gif may divert attention from a fallacy, but doesn't conceal it. Oh -- in case I am not clear, the fallacy is yours, as the sarcasm gif is.

[meaculpa2011]

40. The government already knows your mileage driven.

Your odometer readings are downloaded to the state during the yearly inspection

[NutmegYankee]

41. What yearly inspection?

[GGJohn]

42. What is this yearly inspection you talk about?

You have yearly inspections? Why?

[meaculpa2011]

45. New York requires yearly inspections for...

safety and emissions with all data, including mileage driven, uploaded to Albany.

There are only about a dozen states that do not require yearly inspections.

If a mileage tax were instituted it would be a simple matter for the feds to gather this data from the states.

It would also be in the interest of the states to institute a mileage tax because it would be much easier to simply include the tax in the registration fee rather than monitoring every gas station transaction. Here in NY the Mob has made a fortune by buying up gasoline distributors and stations, collecting the tax and stiffing the gov't. It's been going on for decades.

[GGJohn]

46. I guess I live in one of those states that don't require a yearly insp.

Where I live, we don't even have smog inspections.

[NutmegYankee]

52. That still is only giving a pure odometer reading.

People on this thread are talking about GPS tracking with onboard data storage and a wireless interface. The authoritarians make me

[Luminous Animal]

5. Do you have another plan to maintain the roads? People will still drive on them, there will still be

wear and tear from both traffic and weather.

How do you expect to maintain the infrastructure

[GummyBearz]

7. Yes

My genius plan to maintain the roads is not to take money out of the tax surplus that is already in place to maintain roads in order to use it on other things. Complicated, I know

[Luminous Animal]

10. The money was borrowed and state regulation requires that it be repaid within 3 years.

But in 2010, Californians, with Prop 22, disallowed any future borrowing scheme.

The transportation budget does not have nor has it ever had a surplus. What it has is unfunded infrastructure maintenance that far outpaces money collected. Yes, it has cash on hand and it's annual budget is around 15 billion but un-budgetted repairs and maintenance are estimated to be 50 billion or more.

So, yes. It is complicated.

So what is your genius plan to raise that 50 billion?

[GummyBearz]

11. Do you live in the LA area?

For starters we can stop knocking down perfectly fine overpasses just to rebuild them. And if we are $50 billion short on funds for road building, when we bring in $3 billion per year (which apparently gets directed to non-road repairs anyway), then we might as well say fuck it and quit even trying.

Do you think a 20x increase on the current gas tax is a realistic solution? Because thats what it would take to cover that $50 billion

[Luminous Animal]

14. Yes, I think a gradual increase to 20x is acceptable. U.S. PR touts the gas tax as a "pay-as-you-go"

system but that it actually not true when you consider how much maintenance goes unfunded.

European's taxing system are more a pay-as-you-go reality. The gas tax in Germany is $4.88; in France, it is $5.40.


And perhaps that perfectly fine overpass is being torn down to replace it with a more earthquake safe overpass.

[GummyBearz]

15. ...

We're not in germany or france. Those countries actually have excellent public transit. And we're not tearing down earth quake vulnerable overpasses, unless every single over pass on the 405 is not up to earth quake standards.

Again, do you live in LA? Or are you hypothesizing on all this?

[Luminous Animal]

18. Um, they pay for that excellent public transit through gas taxes and other revenue. You don't get

excellent public transit unless some one pays. In Europe, a large part of the gas tax gets diverted to public transit.

Um, do you know when the 405 overpasses were built? Way before modern earthquake standards.

[GummyBearz]

23. fail

You fail on so many levels. Read the article. The problem that created the proposed mileage tax is that politicians are NOT using the gas tax to fund road repair or build transit infrastructure. They are diverting that gas tax money to other budget shortfalls. Increase gas tax by 20x and all you do is punish the lower-middle class, and the politicians WILL STILL DIVERT IT TO SOMETHING OTHER THAN PUBLIC TRANSIT.

And btw, when a freeway overpass isnt up to earthquake code, they don't demolish it and start over. They just shut down the freeway for one weekend and upgrade it to standards.... you fail on so many levels its hard to respond to them all at once.

[NutmegYankee]

22. Why not just fund them with general fund taxes?

Why is there a need to tie it directly to the poor who have to commute from affordable locations and not collect the taxes from the fat cat 1% who can afford to live close to work?

[truedelphi]

6. It really is a pisser.

The fact is, our elected public officials, who are supposed to be in service to US, are in service to themselves.

Look at the Golden Gate bridge district, in San Francisco, Marin County. It had a surplus of monies back in th eighties - so the Board of Directors allowed for a $ 50 million dollar party! Good bye surplus.

How can we possibly get what we need when no one is getting audited? Or held accountable. I have begun to think that rather than having elections every two to four years, we should have audits every two years. What is happening to our monies!! (And one reason people don't drive as much in California unless they have to - it's because the gas with all the taxes is already so expensive, and the roads are so unsafe to boot! So then they go and try and raise the taxes on the gas!

[Luminous Animal]

12. The 50th Anniversary party was a public celebration not a private one. 300,000 people walked the

bridge... several hundred thousand others also attended. There were multiple free activities for kids, bands played all day and there were spectacular fireworks.

It was a lot of fun and I am glad the district had the money to pull it off.

[truedelphi]

13. Yeah, and five to six years later it was taken out of the hides of poor people

Who needed to get from Marin to their jobs in the city. The moment the economy started to tank, then it was busses being cut and bridge tolls being raised. (Marin County has to take a hit whenever the Bridge district takes one, in terms of transportation services being cut.)

I mean, not that it wasn't a nice party. But it is not the government's job to tax us and then throw parties with a "surplus."

And knowing what I know about most elected officials, I bet there was quite a lot of skimming off the top, for that amount of expense to arrive at $ 50 mil.

I once interviewed one of the people who was on the Board of Directors for the GG Bridge district. I asked him the worth of the bridge district, and he did not know it.

Can you imagine someone being on the Board of Verizon and not knowing the worth of the company? Or Google, or Amazon? But that is so typical of people who are appointed to head public districts, or to have a positon in the "public trust.".

[Luminous Animal]

17. Indeed it is the governments job to throw parties for the public. Inaugurations, Fourth of July,

Veterans Day, Memorial Day, St. Patricks Day, Big Giant Anniversaries, all of these are funded with tax dollars.

Tell me, how may months do you think that $50 million covered. It's a big district with it's own transit system.

[IIstfeminyes]

9. Anarchy by the rich

Why is it considered anarchy if a middle-class or poor person declines to pay taxes, but when rich people don't want to pay, they get real government welfare (called subsidy or tax break)and they don't go to jail? How about a tax break for all the other classes and an increase on the super rich.

[flvegan]

19. This "right thing" by "getting hybrids"...how is that exactly?

[GummyBearz]

21. Its a personal choice

Right and wrong can be argued to no end. When I said "the right thing by getting hybrids", I was referring to helping the environment, reducing dependence on foreign oil, and things of that nature. But by no means did I intend to say driving a traditional car is a bad thing. Everyone has the freedom to choose what they want to drive.

[Bluenorthwest]

31. It's a personal choice for those with the money to make such choices.....

And frankly it is difficult to convince me anyone bought a new car to 'do the right thing'. I'd say they wanted a new car. The right thing is to live near your work and use a bike, feet or public transportation. If it really is about doing the right thing, isn't contributing to the upkeep of the roads you use the right thing to do?

[GummyBearz]

32. Welcome to the thread.

Sorry I don't have 3 million dollars to buy a house within biking distance of work, but I am willing to accept donations if you want to help me out.

I bought a hybrid to both save myself $ on gas, as well as help the environment. And the whole damn point of this thread is to point out how the current gas tax fund, which I gladly pay to contribute to the upkeep of the roads, is being diverted to pay for OTHER PROJECTS.

A secondary point of this thread was pointing out the proposed solution only hurts the lower-middle class who have to commute from affordable living places into down town LA for their jobs, even though they "did the right thing by buying a fuel efficient car".

Anything else I can clear up for you?

[delta17]

48. Not an option for everyone.

And what if you get laid off and have to get a new job? What if you work in an industrial area and there isn't much housing nearby? Let's be realistic, most people who walk or bike to work are affluent urban dwellers. A mileage tax will hurt people like construction workers, who may have to commute to several different job sites per year.

[TheKentuckian]

62. People take jobs where they can get them and it is not easy or even plausible to

move with local jobs. Folks go on long commutes often for little and very often cannot afford to live close.

Just seems a heavily privileged perspective to me that ignores reality for many, if not most people. People are trying to get by, what is so hard to get about that?

[GummyBearz]

66. yea

Edit: I think I screwed up on interpreting the reply system. Self deleting just to be sure I don't make an idiot out of myself.

[Travis_0004]

67. when was the last time public transport paid for itself.

Never. Neither does driving.

[rogerashton]

65. Is it clear that hybrids are good for the environment?

Producing those batteries has some nasty by-products. And is the electricity in your area produced by burning coal?

[Fumesucker]

25. If you drive in traffic a lot hybrids are much more efficient than a non hybrid

Like three or four times the gas mileage and a fourth of the carbon emissions, less other pollution and so on.

Non hybrids really suck in traffic, suck gas and belch pollutants.

I ought to know, that's where my name came from.

[Martin Eden]

29. Inefficient, Costly, Deadly

Those are the three words that come to mind when I contemplate the automobile.

Cars and trucks on roads are incredibly inefficient means to move people & goods from point A to point B -- not just in terms of energy consumed, but in multiple resources including land usage. How much of our landscape in urban/suburban areas are taken up by roads and parking?

The monetary costs go far beyond the taxes we pay for building & maintaining roads and paying for traffic police & courts. How much of the family budget goes towards car ownership, insurance, fuel, and maintenance?

How many people are killed and maimed on our roads every year? We love our cars, but it's a deadly relationship.

No, I don't have a plan to transform the vast infrastructure we've built over the last 100 years into a more efficient, cost-effective, and safe public transportation system.

But I think any high level discussion on transportation needs to consider it.

[GummyBearz]

30. ok...

So a low-cost personal teleportation system is what we need. I'm an engineer, I'll start working on it

[Martin Eden]

33. I was thinking light rail ...

... but your idea is much cooler

[NickB79]

36. No need, someone beat you to it

By a couple hundred years:

Of course, that doesn't work in suburban-sprawl/need to drive 20 miles to Walmart/50 miles to your job-America, but that's our own fault for not doing proper city planning for the past 75 years.

[alarimer]

34. Maybe vehicles should be taxed by weight?

Just throwing this out-

Obviously, people who drive more use more gas and thus pay more gas tax, but what if we switched to a weight-based tax? Large trucks and SUVs are heavier and cause more damage to the roadway. Maybe some kind of VAT tax or whatever on the purchase of those vehicles could be used to supplement highway funds. Of course this provides an incentive to buy more efficient vehicles, so it might not work in the long term.

But infrastructure funds should come out of general revenue, shouldn't they? I mean, we all use roads, whatever we drive.

I don't like the idea of a mileage tax. It's intrusive. And those little devices can be hacked. In any case the gas tax is kind of a mileage tax. The more gas you use (the more miles you drive), the more you pay.

[meow2u3]

39. Good point

The bigger the vehicle (for personal use), the more you should pay, like a backdoor gas guzzler tax. Watch RWNJs' heads explode because they have to pay through the nose for the "right" to drive big behemoths that pollute the air, when they can instead get a smaller car and use the tax savings to get a genital enlargement so they can at least see them.

[GummyBearz]

43. The sad thing

The sad thing is, right now, its the exact opposite. I know a small business owner who needed a new car. Turns out if you get one that weighs over a certain amount, you can write it off on your taxes as a business expense. So instead of getting normal sized car he got a giant humvee that he could write off.

[NutmegYankee]

53. That's an exploit of a law meant to apply to heavy box trucks and the like.

Nearly all normal civilian cars were below that threshold, but the Hummer was above it. If there is one constant truth in our society, it's that the wealthy are unethical to the core.

[mmonk]

44. Use a stick and carrot approach.

Tax combustion engine manufacturers (and dealers) based on fuel efficiency miles per gallon (those that get lower miles to the gallon higher). Reinforce it by tax breaks on engines that get 60 miles to the gallon or more.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

49. California can't levy manufacturing taxes on products made outside its state and if

they tax the retail sale too much people will jump state lines to buy cars. If they tax the car at the time of registration then the taxpayers will be pissed.

And, of course, the whole point of taxes is to spend the revenue. As soon as the technology becomes compliant then revenue will fall leading to the situation described in the OP.

[mmonk]

56. Then I suppose some sort of tax credit for the purchasers

of fuel efficient cars and trucks for both businesses and citizens.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

57. If the issue is reduced tax receipts a negative cash flow would exacerbated the issue. nt

[mmonk]

58. But wouldn't reducing polluting cars be a goal behind the idea in the first place?

[lonestarnot]

47. What, you just noticed richie rich stealing everything?

[bobclark86]

54. Another reason...

I live within a 10-minute bike ride of work.

[GummyBearz]

60. Excellent

As I said up thread, I will accept donations so I can afford a multi-million dollar home within biking distance of my work. Until I can afford that, I am forced to drive, as I can't bike 40 miles one way

[Orsino]

63. Another regressive taxation...

...because taxing unproductive wealth is unthinkable.

[LeftyMom]

68. I don't know how this would work for older cars?

If it's pre-1989 it likely doesn't have an OBDII port, and it's a few years newer than that it likely has one of those weird manufacturer-specific not fully compatible ones. So you can't plug in one of those dealies like Progressive uses.

My car's 48 years old, and if you can find a computer system to connect to or a port through which to do so you're a freakin' magician. I'd save a fortune in a scheme that tracked mileage rather than total gallons of gas used, however.

If there are two different rates at the pump somebody will figure out how to hack the pumps to get the lower rate on unequipped cars within a matter of weeks, tops.