More on Oregon and GPS-tracked Gas Taxes 773
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has an update on Oregon's proposed replacement for their gas tax. Currently two candidates are in development, the first a GPS based system that tracks where a car goes to determine the number of miles driven. The other is a odometer-like device. Both would transmit the data to base stations periodically to determine the tax on a vehicle. There was a previous slashdot article."
annual inspections (Score:3, Insightful)
What about out of state driving??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give me the gas tax (Score:5, Insightful)
I got an idea ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's already expensive enough and this will do nothing more than just piss off state residents. Every state is in financial dire straits right now and every state is trying to come up with lame brain ideas on how to keep the beloved status-quo safe.
Time to tighten the belts and do what everyone else on the face of the earth does when the money is less than the year before. Time for cuts in either pay or in the entire employment pool itself. No one is garunteed job security, so why does uncle sam try so damned hard to never fire anyone? Ohhh yeah I forgot ... uncle sam is the only stupid employer to still over pention plans.
Lay um off, change hiring practices, or whatever just quit trying to raise my damned taxes.
Rube Goldberg (Score:5, Insightful)
What will REALLY happen (Score:5, Insightful)
You WILL face severe jail time for tampering with such devices.
There WILL be mischarges. Some people will be charged for fewer miles than they drove, some for more.
Challenging the "system" will result in being charged with Odometer tampering, as it will be your only evidence against the charges.
Of course, all this assumes they can manage to get all the cars in the state fitted with these devices.
Something tells me the voters of Oregon will be less than happy, and anyone running on a "Stop tracking where I drive" platform will get elected in a landslide.
This whole thing is either political suicide for the people responsible, or a bait and switch so the voters swallow a tax hike without complaining.
Re:annual inspections (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Too easy to cheat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I got an idea ... (Score:3, Insightful)
-j
Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
This needs to be defeated, soundly.
Re:Oh, that's just the beginning... (Score:1, Insightful)
Ooh, conflicting emotions... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand: heavier vehicles tend to both use more gas and cause more wear and tear on roads than lighter vehicles. Thus, a by-mile tax unfairly charges lighter/more efficient vehicles for usage. It can also be argued that programs to counter the collateral effects of burning gas (for example, clean-air initiatives) need a source of funding, for which the gas tax is a good model.
The cynic in me thinks this is popular because of SUVs, and while the plan has it's merits, it is an irresponsible step towards reversing years of progress made in encouraging people to buy less polluting, more efficient vehicles.
They're taxing the wrong comodity!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ticket System Relies on Selective Enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
So to review: Traffic Tickets are a selectively enforced tax which will die if they're enforced uniformly against the entire population.
GPS Mileage would only tax residents of the State (Score:2, Insightful)
Truly Dumb Idea - Techno-Overkill. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Gas guzzlers indeed.
Also, more cars on the road = more gas burned, but not enough to counter inflation combined with better fuel economy for the other classes of vehicles.
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Tracking miles driven by cars is really a solution to figure out road maintenance taxes. For an overall taxe rate per car, the standard odometer can be logged by mechanics at the yearly car checkup and reported to the authorities. No need for exensive computer equipment to do that, just a law to force mechanics to report their findings. If the state wants a better granularity, like who uses the best roads and how much (to know which roads require more maintaining, and to tax users of good roads more), then I guess an onboard GPS would be useful. Otherwise, I reckon it'd be overkill.
Re:Too easy to cheat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
point is, if they go with a milage based system, the darn well better take vehicle weight into consideration.
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus a gas tax would be paid by visitors driving through Oregon. The GPS mileage tax would not be paid by visitors because their cars won't have the silly GPS trackers. Sounds like they are spending money in order to receive less tax revenue. smart!
Of course, Oregon is the state where it is ILLEGAL to pump your own gas. Their make-work laws require a professional gas station attendant to pump your gas for you.
The solution (Score:2, Insightful)
The Most Important Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's put it another way. The people have decided the government already has enough money and refuse to give them more. The government thinking up new and innovative ways to screw citizens out of their hard earned money ignores the basic fact that they were already told no.
No means no, damn it!
Make sure taxes collected for a specific reason are spent for that reason and not put into the general fund. I bet the gasoline tax was implemented to provide the funds to maintain the roads and highways. How much is collected? How much is actually spent on road maintanence? Ask your elected officials to account for the missing money.
What about out-of-state drivers (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but is anyone considering the costs of administering this system? That may well eat up all of the [anticipated] increased revenue.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
On your second point, I wonder if the truckers unions and lobby have anything to do with this. Presumably they would be against any kind of gas tax since this has to be one of their chief operating expenses. And I would think that an 18 wheeler would put a lot more wear and tear on the roads than even the biggest SUV. But with the GPS system, they could base their operations out of another state even though they might travel extensively within Oregon.
I'm not that familiar with the intricacies of interstate trucking, so maybe this isn't a feasible option anyway, but just a thought.
Re:I got an idea ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm honestly having to think hard to post a response that doesn't sound offensive, but your post really angers me.
Don't like taxes? Fine. Then you should be active in the political arena, and make it happen. Prepare a budget plan where you cut employment and public services...no road maintenance, except for the interstate, the federal goverment pays those. No public schools, because no one will want to become a teacher with the salary you're willing to pay. Increased crime with the cutting of police officers you're willing to lay off...etc, etc, etc.
I think your idiocy can be best summarized by this statement:
No one is garunteed job security, so why does uncle sam try so damned hard to never fire anyone? Ohhh yeah I forgotUncle Sam isn't a corporation. A government's aim isn't to profit it's to provide public services to YOU. Making YOU tighten your belt by raising YOUR taxes is INFINITELY better than tightening the government's belt, because if the government has no money, the economy will fall into a state where you won't have any either, and there's no way to recover from that.
Fuel Economy has Dropped, Not Risen! (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, removing the gas tax will lower the price of gas, which will encourage more consumption. Which means more trucks and further reductions in average efficiency of vehicles purchased each year. Trucks are heavier, and create more wear per mile driven on the roads when compared to lighter, more fuel-efficient cars.
Why would you create an incentive for people to drive more in heavier vehicles if you are having problems keeping roads repaired? It just makes no sense.
Re:Exactly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even though I drive a full-sized Chevy pickup that (unfortunately) drinks pretty heavily at the pump, I'd vote for a higher gas tax if its needed. I think that people who drive heavy, inefficient vehicles, which are most detrimental to roads, should pay a higher tax. Those who drive compact, fuel-efficient cars should be rewarded, not only for their lessened impact on the environment but their reduced impact on the road infrastructure.
Re:The Most Important Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The government of Oregon has told people that they need more money to pay for public services such as upkeep on roads. They repeatedly offered a fair and balanced gas tax to help make up the difference, but the greedy, short-sighted, freeloading citizens rejected it and yet continued to complain about the state of the roads and other services. This forced the government to come up with crazy, lame-brained schemes that would serve the same purpose in an obfuscated way.
Taxes are what we pay for public service. Don't complain about the lack of services and cheer the tax cuts. (Unless you sincerely believe the money is being spent inefficiently, in which case you have a whole other problem.)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:4, Insightful)
more problems than a gas tax (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, if they wanted to offset the hit from an increased gas tax, they could consider firing all the pump jockies and letting us pump our own damn gas. Sure the occasional backwoods hick or yuppie dumbass will end up lightimg him/herself on fire, but if it saves us money, isn't it all for the better?
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the whole idea is still insane too. First off to enforce something like that, you'd have to manufacture those devices for what, a million cars? Then you'd have to make sure they were included in all new cars, not to mention tamper proofing, etc. THEN they'd have to have the reading devices installed into all of the gas stations.
I'd also like to know what they plan to do on non-state roads? Yes they do exist, if I own a 20 acre farm, and I drive my truck around it all day, I'm not driving on state roads, but I'd still be taxed for it. Sure, I would have still paid a tax for the gas itself, but who's to say it's not more than before?
It just, I don't know I'm not city planner or anything, but the whole idea just doesn't seem like it's going to make a difference in the amount of tax revenue the state will get. When you consider the cost of putting the system in place, the cost of enforcing it, the public outcry when everyone and their mother has to take their car in to get a device installed. Then you weigh in they'd either have to allow people from outside of the state purchase non-taxed gas, or have two different rates for gas at the gas station, you end up confusing the consumer and causing even more public outcry about the system.
Okay, so sure, maybe after 20 years the system would actually pay off. Let me ask you this, in 20 years do we still want to having gasoline cars as the primary mode of transportation? What about these hydrogen cars GM is promising, and electric cars and hybrid cars. What if in 4 years I can actually drive a car powered completely off of hydrogen I make in my garage? How are they going to tax me then? And enforce it?
Then as they point out, what if the system is wrong? What if it breaks and suddenly I get a 5,000 dollar charge? Granted, that's probably more rare, it's the smaller inconsistancies that scare me the most. What if charges incorrectly every 3rd time, by 20 cents. I wouldn't realize that. Even if it did tell me how many miles it was taxing me for. I'd have to stop and think "Did I really drive that much?" instead of just looking at how much gas I purchased.
Then yes, the whole privacy issues. Sure, their intentions seem pretty good right now, but the path to hell is paved in Gold, or whatever that saying is. I'm sure if a system like that was in place, after 5, maybe 10 years, someone decides, "let's flip a switch so we can start tracking people." What if I live on the border, and device to go to the next state over to fill my gas all the time. Does the state really know down to the meter where it's border is around the entire state using GPS?
This really sounds like a nightmare to me and I'm pretty sure that the test run will fail misteribly, and if it doesn't, the production run of it most definitely will. And whoever attempts to promote, or sign that into law, can kiss their political career goodbye.
Do they tag gas cans ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:3, Insightful)
You've hit it right on the head (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, being scared of their own tails, they couldn't just vote in a tax increase; they put it to a ballot measure. People being what they are, the tax increase was voted down, and the budgets got cut.
The prevailing opinion among people I've talked to is that it was a scare tactic: tell horror stories so that voters will be afraid of NOT increasing taxes, then let them do it, thus avoiding any responsibility for the increase. I never thought of it before, but maybe this round of idiocy is the same sort of thing.
Hamster
Re:The system isn't broken (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand that someone (Kia? Daewoo? Hyundai? One of those) has a V8 SUV which is around $25k. This can only make things worse but it illustrates the stupidity of paying $45k for a truck with a permanent camper shell.
In any case, SUVs get bad gas mileage, worse than modern sports cars. The only vehicles which get worse mileage than SUVs these days are sports trucks like the Lightning. I dunno about the new one but a couple years back the F150 Lightning was THE vehicle with the worst mileage in the US. The second? Ferrari 355. (The Ferrari is a supercar, not just a sports car, and as such is exempt from my statement about efficiency.)
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
That is almost certainly the point. Voters won't raise existing taxes so the way to get them to do that is to propose something they are going to like even less.
This tax makes no sense at all, the cost of retrofitting cars with the GPS systems will be horrendous, remember that they will have to be fraud proofed GPS systems that have yet to be invented, using expensive wireless data connections that probably don't exist in much of the state. Oregon is not California, it is not big enough for state adoption to drive economies of scale.
They will be lucky to get the meters for less than $400 per vehicle. So how long does it take to get that back in taxes? I spend about $35 buying a tank of gas every other week, or about $900 a year. That is for the state, federal tax and the cost of delivering the gas. Say the state tax is $200, that means it will be two years before I pay them the cost of the stupid meter.
When politicians propose something that does not add up they have a hidden agenda. The trick is you give them a choice between your preferred policy and eating broken glass. So Clinton gave the country a choice between tax cuts and 'saving social security' guess who won? The Bush plan is to give the country a choice between continuing deficits and eliminating social security.
People don't like paying taxes, but see what happens if they are told the consequences. We keep being told that the voters are not going to allow the Bush tax cuts to be repealled, lets see what happens when the Baby Boomers are living off social security. The inheritance taxes will be back sooner than you can say 'Enron' - BTW isn't it nice to see Martha Stewart taking the rap for the Enron mess?
So tell your SUV driver that they have a choice of a new tax plus a spy in the cab reporting their movements to John Ashcroft and slightly higher rates for an existing tax and you will get the answer higher taxes. Ask them the question higher taxes or crappy roads and they will say 'oh I'll take the crappy roads so I can use my four wheel drive'.
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:2, Insightful)
While they are safer for the occupants in a multiple-car crash
Yup that'll do it for me. I live in NYC and only drive once in a while on weekends and holidays at which point I am subjected to an astounding number of people on mobiles who apparently want to wreck themselves and/or me. I definitely feel better in a mid 90's full size body on frame "SUV".
Econoboxes also tend not do do as well when I'm going skiing with a bunch of friends and the weather turns rough. I guess I could get a roof rack and cram everyone in - or the skis and people could just fit.
If you are willing to go big ticket then you can even get an "SUV" that will out stop (and out-go) most of the junk out there. If you have the money why not?
Man am I a dunce for having an "SUV". Or maybe there is room for personal preference.
Life and Art merge (Score:3, Insightful)
To which the population replies "Thank God."
My question is, if the whole planet now sounds like Ford Prefect is somewhere in the area, where's my electric thumb and my copy of that book with the "Don't Panic" cover?
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:3, Insightful)
But that could cause head injuries. Fortunately, they aren't attaching them to the top of your head, but to your car.
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:2, Insightful)
Jeebus. They're fucking cars. Cars have no intrinsic or inherent value: goodness | evilness.
Besides, most of the ALLEGED *evil incarnate* facets of cars you list incur expenses on *those cars' owners* who -- last I checked weren't strong-armed into buying them... unless, ofcourse, they went to FastEddie's lot but that's a whole 'nother story.
Fucking net nannies!
I used to live in southwestern CO and not for a million bucks would I have given up my 4WD vehicle -- no matter how deep the crater on the dirt road up to the *at that time* isolated hiking path, no matter how slick the roads or how poor visilibity from Aspen to Crested Butte by way of Monarch Pass--IIRC--I could always count on my vehicle. We were tight, br-ah.
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:1, Insightful)
As it's been said, they're bigger and can take more punishment than the little Metro that Granny is driving in the fast lane. If someone makes a bad lane change on the Interstate, you're probably in "the driving zone" anyway, and likely won't notice it until you collide, or the other driver notices...either case resulting in an inescapable situation for you.
In short, go fuck yourself.
Re:Doesn't make sense to me (Score:3, Insightful)
However, IANATE.