For a given car a gasoline tax is a mileage tax isn’t it? The more miles you drive the more fuel you use and the more tax you pay.
This looks like a way to raise taxes on gasoline without appearing to raise taxes on gasoline, thus fulfilling Arnie’s vow not to raise taxes.
Hmph!.
By way of sarcasm, it is funny to see how concerned some folks are about this proposed tax. So, in this spirit, I did a cut and paste of the sort of responses I got on “my” tax and changed them very slightly. The changed words are the italics. Basically, if you don’t want to pay the tax (if it happens) then just don’t drive.
Mileage taxes do not target only one “specific portion of the population.” They equally target anyone who buys gas, just like a sales tax on tobacco applies equally to anyone who buys tobacco products.
No one who does not wish to pay a mileage tax is in any way coerced into paying it. - They can just sell their house and move.
The mileage tax should be 15 dollars a gallon.
The premise behind mileage taxes is that they are levied on goods that: (1) tend to have inelastic demand, and (2) are used for socially deleterious purposes. In other words, the kinds of things that get slapped with a sin tax are those that people aren’t likely to give up, but are unpopular enough to provide political cover for the people who vote them in.
Whoa! Huh? Being a former driver, I could give a rat’s ass about the law, as I don’t drive.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
First they came for the SUVs
and I did not speak out
because I did not drive an SUV.
Then they came for the Minivans
and I did not speak out
because I did not drive a minivan.
Then they came for the Compacts
and I did not speak out
because I did not drive a Compact.
Then they came for my feet
and there was no where to run
because the goverment took my feet, dammit! GEEZ!
Yes, the freedom of people to live in a place of their liking is bad, bad, bad and must be eliminated one way or another. The ends justify the means.
Every density huh? Like my rural, everybody’s got at least half an acre, there are woods all around type area? Part of the reason that works is that it is far from the city. The reasons people live there include the fact that they like being far away from the city.
And none of the Silicon Valley geeks will ever be able to figure out how to fix the thing so that it reads every 100 miles as 1 mile.
Ewww no. Even if I could live a mile from where I work, I wouldn’t want to. You know why? Because in Pennsylvania we have snow, and sometimes a lot of it. When work is closed and a skeleton crew has to be there, guess who’s considered ‘snow emergency workers’? Anyone living within a 10 mile radius of work. Guess who gets called up on Saturday and Sunday to go on in and fix something? The people who live close. And quite frankly, the closer I live to work the less I feel like I’ve left work when I go home. The idea of going home from work is having work be ‘somewhere else.’ If I can see work from house, work is too close.
What’s the difference between a ‘developer’ and an ‘environmentalist’?
A ‘developer’ wants to build houses in the country. An ‘environmentalist’ already has a house in the country.
[sub]Actually, the joke is ‘forest’ or ‘wilderness’ instead of ‘country’. But I thought ‘country’ worked better in this thread. 
[/sub]
I think the untintended consqeuence from this would be people taking their kids to the stores so the kids can wait in the car with the engine running, then taking it home again before stopping the engine, recording start and endpoints that are only a few yards apart. If the taxes are sufficiently high, it may be worth idling away a buck or two’s worth of gas while you run your errands. The pollution problem could get worse as a result.
And if it’s not practical to leave the kids in the car, a new industry could arise: car babysitters! We’ll sit in the car and listen to the radio while you do your errands. Heck, you could hire a student to do his/her homework while you’re at the barber.
It doesn’t give the government an excuse to monitor your movements.
The fact that this proposal is obviously unsuited this proposal is for its declared purpose invites suspicion as to its real purpose. If this be conspiracy theory, make the most of it.
Shrug. Why give me that “they’re coming to get me” quote, when in a similar tax situation on a different “product”, I was told to quit whining and take it because nobody else cares? That was my sarcasm. The concept is clear. You get the support you give others. I get told to deal with it, then I get to tell the next guy and so on. I fully expect that either this mileage tax will go through, or the regular sales tax will be raised to a usurious level. When the money gets wasted (on administration or junkets) or sits idle (while the state makes interest off it), and people complain, I’ll tell 'em to quit whining about it. :rolleyes:
If the tax goes through, I think I’ll consider moving as close to California as I can without actually living in California. Fill ups with paying any tax!
SteveG1, your argument is off-point. People need to be able to move around, and for most people – especially in California – that means motor vehicles. No one needs to be able to smoke. You’re trying to compare apples and oranges and complaining that no one else is willing to, and it makes no sense.
This is the only argument I can see in this entire thread that makes any sort of sense, and I agree with you that the negatives outweigh it by a longshot. You’d have to be awfully cynical to believe that the state government would deliberately increase congestion just to fill the coffers, and wouldn’t already be motivated to decrease congestion as much as possible. And as already pointed out, what exactly would they do at this stage of the game anyway? Nuke L.A. and start over?
Yeah, this strikes me as an extremely poor idea that would only benefit gas-guzzlers.
I wonder what the trucking industry thinks about this proposal? :rolleyes:
Should we also put up toll booths at every road that crosses the stateline so we can surcharge the tourists or bolt on their own GPS unit and bill’em later…naw, just give us your credit card number. Trust us, we know what we’re doing. :rolleyes:
Naw, make them park their cars in a huge lot and issue mopeds to them! 
The new DMV head who has made this idiotic proposal has as much as said the reason is fear of loss of revenue due to the increasing popularity of hybrid vehicles.
I don’t like LA sprawl anymore than the next person. Hell, I can drive along any road for 50 miles from my house and never be more than 500 yards from a mall, an oil refinery, or a housing tract, fer cryin’ out loud.
But the alternative, as many forget, is to build a lot of closely-spaced high-rises in an earthquake zone.
Umm, I’ll take the sprawl.
I think it’s an incredibly idiotic idea, quite frankly. There’s no penalty for driving a gas-guzzling polluter; a Hummer pays as much as a Prius, for crying out loud. Plus, the idea of having Big Brother watching my every move gives me more than a little case of the creeps. No, rather, it fills me with disgust, and makes me want to put webcams in every room of every CA legislator’s house, so we can all ogle them in turn, and they can see how it feels.
Morons.
Geez, pal, did you leave your sense of humour in the glove compartment when you sold your last car?
Apparently, this is a great idea because all those damn Prius owners are trying to cheat CA out of its gas tax revenue. The nerve of them, buying a highly efficient and environmentally friendly car. They should all be out there buying more Hummers.
Last I heard, Arnie, who drives a Hummer, had not come out with a position on this. Gee, I wonder why.
I would say that this idea isn’t before the Legislature in California. It is just an idea by the newly appointed head of the California DMV.
Its chances of being passed by the current legislature hover somewhere below zero
If the people of CA had any brains, they’d realize that paying a gas tax IS a tax per mile sans Big brother tracking you. Supposedly, this latest proposal is to replace the gas tax. Hence, in theory, it’d be a wash. But, in practice, this is BS! It’s simply data waiting to be collected by Big Brother! And, you know Big Bro ain’t gonna just give up that gas tax, either!
It’s down-right scary. What the hell will gov think up next? Why not just brand a bar code on our necks?