Newspaper Article #1
Newspaper Article #2
The meat of this is as follows;[=1:f9a0e53dac]
CA has the 4th highest gas tax in the US
The funds for this are to go toward highway improvement, but it's get raided from the general fund each year due to the financial crisis the state is in.
The state generates enough revenue in LA County alone to broaden one of the most congested freeway segments in the US. Again, from the revenue that is generated from the gas tax, you could widen the Ventura freeway through downtown. Pricing based on the build out of the century freeway (I-105).
The current system rewards you for driving an efficient automobile by lowering the amount of gas you burn. The lighter the vehicle, the less tax you pay. The heavier the vehicle, the more gas you burn, and the more taxes you pay.
NOTE: Heavier vehicles cause more damage to the roads so you should pay more taxes.
[*] The new system would place a GPS in your car and ding you for the total mileage, regardless of the efficiency of the vehicle. This after the State Assembly has beaten us over the head to buy more fuel efficient vehicles and now, this has them worried that they will loose their tax revenue.
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The Orwellian aspect of this is not to be denied. Oh well, if this happens, it's time to move.[/]
I can''t see how they can do this and fight the invasion of privacy lawsuits at the same time....
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
*chuckle* Well, they will have an increase in tax revenue since most folks out here cannot afford to live anywhere close to where they work.
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I don''t really see this holding up in court. But then, it is TPROCA so you never know. Maybe it will go federal and they will told to shut the hell up.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Here''s to hoping, but I doubt it. I agree this will not likely get off the ground, but damn, it just kills me that these people have nothing better to do than come up with ideas like this.
They should make a state wide mandate to come up with alternative ways to tax the population and then fire everyone who actually submits an idea.
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The insurance companies are already implementing GPS systems in order to track how/where you drive, so that they can ""give you better rates if you are a safe driver"". Yeah right. The caveats are:
#1. This is still in the testing phase
#2. You have to sign up for this voluntarily.
If any gov''t dared to attempt to force a GPS system in my car, I would fight it on every line of the Bill of Rights. This could be used for anything.. but of course if you are doing nothing wrong what do you have to hide? *chuckles*
What they *could* do is, when you get your car inspected they get your mileage. They *could* take the difference between each year, and then hike up your inspection charge based upon how much you drove. This would have no privacy concerns but still is a nasty tax.
Be prepared for all kinds of attempts to track your driving in the future from the insurance companies.. and they will proabbly get away with it. yay!
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“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” John K Galbraith
I wonder what this would do to the business vehicle tax deduction? You already get to deduct state taxes from your federal taxes, so would this be in addition to the $0.35/mile (or whatever the rate is) that you can deduct now? I''d much rather my tax money go to the state than the feds, since California is a federal donor state.
"Raise high the black flags, my children."
-- Gebhard von Blucher.
I think something similar is being tested out in Oregon, as well.
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If this BS comes to pass, you can damn well bet I''ll be practicing some civil disobediance. We get a lot of whacky stuff come from the socialists in Sacremento, but this is one of the goofiest ideas I''ve seen yet. What''s more, this proposal is coming from a team of Schwarzenegger''s!
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They might not even have to track it via GPS.. They might just make you come in and have your mileage checked when you get your car smogged. Change it to once a year or something.
Still a bad idea though.. A tax on movement?!? Next thing you know, we''ll all have pedometers and have to pay a tax on walking. As if that would ever fly.
Keep the consumption tax at the gas pump where it belongs.
The question isn't "Who is going to let me?" It's "Who is going to stop me?"
This is why the ACLU exists. To protect us from stuff like this, not from public Nativity scenes.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/14/eveningnews/main674120.shtml
Just a more recent atory on the issue.
These quotes strike me as funny:
How are people not supposed to drive in ''rush hour''? Doesn''t that depend on what time everyone gets out of worK?
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Whips out calculator, slide-rule, abacus, and EZ-Tip-Calc
Eegads, the math is correct! Did she think of that on the fly!?
This whole thing is a moronic idea. Taxing people for being normal, imagine. How about instead, they stop paying idiots like this, and put the money towards building more roads, hmmmm?
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Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Tax moms! Tax soccer practice!
I generated a virtual world in the toilet bowl this morning.
-- Podunk on the PS3's mystical, magical abilities
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I am guessing none of you have heard of the usage fees that London has imposed during the last few years, and how it has reduced gridlock.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/02/15/news/20050215_ne02_london....
If you view congested roads as an economic situation (static supply of roads, high demand at peak hours, low demand at off peak) and create a system that uses economic principles, people should have to pay for the use of a limited resource. Why shouldn''t someone who drives in NYC pay for those roads during rush hours?
And the solution is not building more roads... I am sick and tired of paying more federal tax dollars into road maintainence and you should be too. Plus there is no more room! Have you seen a satelite picture of LA or NYC lately? There is not much of Long Island left because of crappy land management. The time has come for managing what resources we have more effectively.
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“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” John K Galbraith
The amount of money Miami would make from this system would be astronomical. We have the problem here of traffic occuring on EVERY street no matter the time of day. I got stuck in traffic at 1 AM for christ sakes!
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Charging based on usage can reduce traffic in some places, but it would never work anywhere. It works in metro London, and could work maybe in NYC because there''s lots of public transportation available. That would never work here, since all we have are busses, and they don''t reach everywhere.
All this would do is punush people that have to travel to go to work.
"Anakin, as embodied by [Hayden] Christensen, is the kind of needlessly moody kid you might see getting punched out in a Dairy Queen parking lot."
"”Paul Tatara on SW:Episode II
Oh my god... that''s awesome!
Anyway... I don''t drive. Yes, I know, a 20-year-old with no license, no car, and no desire for either of the previous two yet. But even I think this is pretty stupid. My mom had to get a job in Downtown Cinci because that was the only place that had any positions open for her profession... is she supposed to pay extra because the EPA operates there? That''s f*cking retarded. We already have home owner''s taxes and income taxes, LET US HAVE THE TIME BETWEEN THE TWO FOR FREE!
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
Well the article that Mayfield points out that bus usage has increased since imposing the toll:
So maybe they'd expand the bus service in your area?
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Ditto on that. London essentially outlawed cars for the less than rich, which is well and good when public transportation is around. I shudder to think what would happen if things like this spread to the boonies.
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Why do they need a GPS to do this? Why not just have quarterly odometer readings? I would think that would be a LOT less invasive privacy-wise. A GPS to track your mileage is like bugging someone's house in the name of monitoring their electricity usage.
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Yup
Don't you pay an Occupational Privilege Tax where you are? I know Pennyslvania has one. This year I (and everyone else in my county) paid $52 for the privilege of having a job.
Hyperbole - THE BEST THING EVER
Too easy to cheat. People would just disconnect their speedometer for a month or so each quarter. One of my uncles used to do that with his cars so he'd get more when he sold them. (Yes, he's an as-- I mean, yes that's not a nice thing to do. That's the way it goes though.)
Plus that system would be very hard to automate. You'd end up needing too many people to administer the odometer checks, making it too expensive.
Either way, this wouldn't happen. Even without the desperately needed redistricting reform it'd piss off way to many voters.
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The potential for abuse of the system is there irrespective of what technological solution you employ. What, for instance, is stopping someone from simply putting a bucket over the GPS antenna? Truckers do that all the time to evade surveillance.
And if any system is primarily to keep the honest people honest (the best you can hope for), why do you need one that gives a detailed record of where you drove and when? It would seem a lot less invasive to use odometer readings.
Btw, odometer tampering violates both state and federal fraud laws. Doing so carries with it penalties a little on the stiff side.
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I'm sure California like a lot of other states have eCheck. And they read the odometers anyway when you get the eCheck, just piggyback on that.
Funny. You could make a lot of money selling removeable GPS hoods made of, say, 4mm lead sheets. Put it on once every few days. "Gosh, I don't know why the odometer doesn't match, maybe your GPS broke?"
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Maybe we could all start driving backwards so the government will have to pay us instead.
If we are driving backwards what do we care about the road conditions of the streets in front of us?
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I don't see how an odometer reading would be hard at all to automate. The infrastructure for that is already there. First, there is self-reporting for the purpose of purchasing automobile insurance. Second, there is annual vehicle emissions testing. And third, there is the reporting of mileage during the transfer of title of vehicles. In none of these cases is a GPS ever needed to determine the efficacy of mileage.
GPS, on the other hand, could be incredibly expensive. First, there is the purchase, maintanence, and replacement of a GPS device for every vehicle in the entire state. There is the building of an entirely new infrastructure from the ground up to accomodate the collection of that data. And finally, there is the non-trivial cost of litigating privacy lawsuits against suspicious folks like me that are convinced that this is just another ploy to collect information about where I'm going and when that isn't any of the state's business.
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