This Line of Thinking Can Never End in a Good Place
This is a really, really bad idea.
“We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled,”
[Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood said in an interview. “What I see this administration doing is this—thinking outside the box on how we fund our infrastructure in America.”
Here’s the hitch. In order to do that, they have to be able to track everywhere you drive and you have to trust that they’ll turn a blind bureaucratic eye to the time you spend driving on roads that aren’t federally-funded. Except that thanks to the perverse practice of federal grants, pretty much every road in the country is federally-funded. So they get to watch everywhere you go.
What’s to stop them from trying to control you through taxes once they know everywhere you drive? Heck, they can punish all sorts of behaviors they don’t like once they can monitor you around the clock. Pull into a McDonald’s more than once a month? Wham – fat tax! How about the liquor store? Uh oh – that’s an alcohol tax!
Did you got to church more than six times this month? Heh…let’s not even contemplate what a left-wing totalitarian-minded government would do to someone who showed an “unhealthy” religious fixation. Actually, we don’t have to contemplate it. We can just look around and see all the examples we want.
Of course, this sort of stuff is fine to say in the happy unicorn kingdom of President Obama. But imagine what would have happened if the Chimpy McHitlerBurton and his evil minions had suggested that maybe it would be a great idea to track your every vehicular movement so they could pay for road improvements. No one in the MSM would have accepted the statement at face value and it’s a good bet that there would have been a media meltdown the likes of which God has not seen. I wouldn’t have wanted to see the vitriol that would have gotten from cable news or the big newspapers (Well, that’s not entirely true. I would love to see Keith Olbermann’s head swell up with rage until it pops like the blood-sucking tick he is).
As to LaHood’s funding point, I can only say that Congress spent upwards of $40 billion last year on infrastructure. That doesn’t include the billions of dollars spent by the states. I’d say we’re funding our highway programs quite sufficiently, thanks. The problem isn’t hwo we get the money but what happens when the money is appropriated. Ifs Secretary LaHood really wants to think outside the box, he’ll start coming up with ways to make sure that our money isn’t subject to Congressional corruption, thousands of earmarks, and incompetence galore.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Barack Obama’s New Deal v 2.0
- Some Stimulus Facts: How Big Is It?
- How Would You Like to Get All Your 2008 Taxes Back? One Republican Wants to Make It Happen.
Category: The Economy and Your Money, The Rise of the Nanny State
Just for shits and giggles I'd probably just drive around in circles all day and let 'em follow me.
"Doin' donuts in the parking lot tax"
RG
Heh. I like that.
I wonder if LaHood contemplated the possibility of breaking the system. I could just toss the license plate in your trunk, let you drive around with it a while, then when I get my bill, produce affadavits and photographs that prove that the car was parked during that time.
It's a really dumb idea that could only be thought wise by a control freak.
This won't work and if they even try it, the backlash will be tremendous. I think they have mis-judged the American people.
I oppose this too, but I am surprised you do.
First of all, it involves the government spying on everyone, which you have supported for a few years now. Why the change of heart? I'm glad you now have come around to my position on government spying, and I'm not really surprised that you would change your mind when the control of the executive branch changes parties. But sadly, you will change your position of this again when a Republican is president.
But the thing that really surprises me is that you support the right of people to drive bis-ass gas guzzlers. The miles driven tax lets gas guzzlers off the hook. It punishes a Prius just as much as a Hummer. The current gas tax punishes the Hummer much more. I'm stunned you wouldn't prefer this over the current gas tax. After all, the proposal encourages people to consume more gas per mile. I thought you wanted to help the oil companies. It's one of the few things we agreed on.
In the end, this is just a stupid policy that I'm ashamed someone of this adminstration supports. The current gas tax is already a tax on vehicle mile, but it's multiplied by vehicle weight. And that makes a lot of sense. Taking vehicle weight out of the calculation punishes those that drive small cars. Small cars cause less damage to the roads and create fewer emissions. For that, small cars should be rewarded, not punished. But LaHood is an auto industry guy, he wants to encourage people to buy the crappy cars Detroit produces. So I guess I'm not surprised. It's high time the Democratic Party stopped being Detroit's bitch. We can win an election without Michigan, thank you very much. So let's just tell them to screw themselves instead of the rest of us. It also speaks very acutely about the wisdom of putting Republicans in the cabinet. I understand the desire for bipartisanship, but putting really stupid Republicans in the cabinet is not the solution. Of course, if you do want Republicans in your cabinet, they are likely to be really stupid. The good thing is that Republicans now hate LaHood and Democrats always hated him. He won't last this year in office. And the Republicans can feel proud that they took LaHood down while allowing someone they hate more to take office. Great work Republicans, you can fall into a trap better than anyone.
Again, you attribute a belief to me that I do not have and you have no evidence that I have. You simply assume that you know what I think. Stop it.
I'll also note that Obama has already rejected this policy. He's a slick politician. He knows damn well how to leave the stupid Republican holding the bag. The more I see how Obama works, the more I respect him. He's way slicker than any Republican can ever dream of, yet he's still pushing the right policies. But I'm sure you will still criticize Obama for rejecting the stupid policies proposed by a Republican that you criticized.
We'll see what happens down the road. As we've seen, the President is quite capable of standing on opposite sides of the same issue if you give him enough time.
“I’d say we’re funding our highway programs quite sufficiently, thanks.”
Umm, our highways are nowhere near what you’d see in Europe or Japan. China is meeting our quality of road building. But China has a conflict with Thailand over the the China-Southeast Asia road system. The reason? Thailand has better roads than America, and they expect that any road built in Thailand be built by Thai standards, which now exceed American standards. China wants those roads built by American standards. And that’s not acceptable to the Thai. When our road building standards are compromised by budgets to the point that Thailand will not accept such poor roads, we need to rethink our standards. If you think our roads should be worse than those of Thailand, you need to explain why they should be that way. And before you claim that this information isn’t true, remember that I have drive every Interstate highway in the US except for IS8, and I’ve driven the majority of Thai highways as well. I understand this issue better than anyone in the US, and better than almost anyone in Thailand. So tell me, why should Thailand have better roads than we do?
I'd say you're wrong about the quality of our roads. My bet is that you're not considering the amount and type of traffic that American roads get, compared to those in Europe and Asia. I doubt that any country has as much heavy traffic as our roads.
"I doubt that any country has as much heavy traffic as our roads."
You obviously have never been to Asia. The traffic there is horrendous. Roads are much more crowded there than here. In some sense, we have an excuse for our roads being so bad: nobody drives on them, anyway. If you don't believe me, check out the traffic in a medium sized city like Hyderabad, India. It's only seven million people, so it's pretty manageable by Asian standards. Yeah, it's a little bigger than that tiny village you call Baltimore, but it's still pretty small. It's nothing like Delhi or Beijing.
"I’d say you’re wrong about the quality of our roads."
Given that you are basing this belief on your lack of travel, I find your opinion less compelling than the reality I've seen.
I should say that Asia is a very big place and there are obviously exceptions. Laos is pretty much an entirely rural country. The biggest city, Vientiane (Vien Chiang, as they say), has 130,000 people. The only decent road in the country was built by the Chinese so they can get to Thailand. That road barely meets Texas standards (which are average for the US), but is awesome compared to Lao standards. Dirt roads are the norm there. But that's Laos, and I hope it stays that way. It's really beautiful. Vietnam is another exception. And it's country that is so beautiful that it makes Ireland seem brown. Their traffic is mostly motorbikes and bicycles. It makes crossing a street really easy. You don't wait for traffic to stop, you just walk right through it. It's like fording a stream. Except that you have motorcycles whizzing by you at fifty miles per hour and they miss you by inches. It's a little disconcerting at first, but you get used to it. But in the rest of Asia, traffic is really scary. Turkey has a reputation for having really crazy drivers, and they really are crazy. But the rest of Asia has even more insane drivers. In America, we criticize Asian drivers, but no American would even stand a chance in Asia. Explain to me how you would approach a five point intersection with no stoplights and the traffic moving at thirty miles per hour (they slow down for intersections). I still can't figure it out, and I've been through more intersections like that than I can count. It just works somehow. But it's a rush that no roller coaster can ever give you. But it still isn't near the rush you get when you're driving through an alley at sixty miles per hour. We're talking about alleys so narrow that I have to pull my knees in so that they don't get scraped on the buildings. My knees have an inch clearance on both sides, and we're going sixty miles per hour. Welcome to Vietnam. The motorbike taxi drivers in Bangkok are crazier than a shithouse rat, but they can't even hold a candle to the divers in Da Nang or Hanoi. Bangkok can at least say that people drive on the left side of the road. In Vietnam, they drive on both sides and the sidewalks. They stick to the right side only when it's convenient.
[...] LaHood suggested a per-mile tax on American drivers to fund infrastructure projects. At the time, I wrote: Here’s the hitch. In order to do that, they have to be able to track everywhere you drive [...]