Big Brother Goes Green
Audrey Hudson
Gas-guzzling vehicle owners pay the lion’s share of highway maintenance, but advanced technology is paving the way for eco-friendly cars to contribute more revenue through a new tax.
By requiring cars to be equipped with odometer spyware that will report to authorities how many miles are driven, government is looking to toss out the old gas tax for a new miles-driven fee.
“The Left is always pushing for more and more regulations, and more and more taxes. Now an insatiable Washington is looking to tax so-called green vehicles in a Big Brotheresque way,” said Robert Gordon, senior adviser for strategic outreach at The Heritage Foundation.
“The green chickens could be coming home to roost, and with them, the Left may have finally met a tax it doesn’t like,” Gordon said.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is expected to make a recommendation later this year on whether the federal government should drop the gas tax and implement the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax.
During a hearing earlier this spring, The Hill reported Conrad as saying that President Obama is asking for $556 billion over the next six years to fund federal transportation projects. Money from the Highway Trust Fund is also used to support mass transit, walkways, bike paths and scenic trails.
“Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren’t going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?” Conrad suggested. (Human Events)
Why ever should the government drop the gasoline tax when they could simply implement the Mileage tax and collect from TWO sources? After all, it isn’t really ‘double taxation’ because electric cars would only have to pay the mileage tax. The gasoline tax could remain as “penance for pollution.”
It’s all about the money, anyway.