Or in other words, we’ll all drive “taxis”, except for the chosen exempt few.
Obama admin. floats draft plan to tax cars by the mile: ‘A vehicle miles traveled tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven’
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The plan is a part of the administration’s Transportation Opportunities Act, an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.
It is so spectacularly stupid, I kept waiting for it to show up on snopes.com yesterday. I just couldn’t believe it to be something under consideration. At 500 pages, the idea is one of many in the proposed bill.
Today at 10:15AM EST, the story was updated, and now the White House says this:
“This is not an administration proposal,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said. “This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not taken into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”
Translation:
…we are shelving the idea until after the 2012 election.
The plan was to put GPS devices on cars that would report the mileage. The Hill writes:
Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.
I could see a huge black market for “patches and hacks” and other circumventions developing out of this. It would turn millions of people into criminals.
Take box. Wrap in Aluminium Foil. Drive to Florida and back. Remove foil.
Yeah, like that tracking idea is gonna work….
It’s really simple: You want to track my miles? I’m going to sue under the implied “Right To Privacy” found to allow abortions. If there is, in fact, a “right to privacy” that is not written anywhere in the constitution but says a child can be killed, then that same right to privacy lets me drive the Momma To Da Docta without a tracking…
So, do I have a constitutional “right to privacy” or do you stop doing abortions? Your call…
This has always troubled me, the EU want to do the same thing. However, we are already charged by the mile, as we pay tax on the fuel we use – this also acts to tax fuel guzzlers more than efficient cars as well. There proposal is to tax per mile at a fixed rate, this actually benefits fuel guzzlers and penalizes fuel efficient cars!
The EU version was to be based on roads used with some roads be more expensive than others, and also based on peak hours etc…still a silly idea in my mind!
New Zealand has a pay by the km system for taxing diesel already and no GPS is required, you simply buy a voucher for a few 1000 km from the post office or online. No need for big brother to track you. I would prefer the tax at the pump though to be honest – the GPS idea just has soooo many flaws to it!
Plus your being tracked constantly which smacks of big brother government wanting to use it for other uses as well, average speed calculations and automatic speeding fines, automatic parking fines, tracking “suspected” terrorists – though it could be useful for avoiding crashes / congestion and quickly spotting accidents – but it is definitely a double edged sword!
“They forgot to exempt electric cars. Back to the drawing board.”
Actually, electric vehicles are precisely what has been spurring this change. A number of states have also specifically started talking about legislation to require EV’s – and only EV’s – to have mileage-tax equipment installed. This is because the government is bemoaning the possible loss of gas tax revenue from EV’s.
It’s all academic, anyways. I don’t think they’re really willing to send anyone out here with guns to actually force me to put some sort of silly tax gizmo in my car, any more than they are likely to send people out for a half dozen other silly reasons ranging from failing to buy healthcare to stealing “their” rain that happens to fall on my house. They can go pound sand; I am not a serf.
For over two decades, politicians over here in Germany are trying to implement this “Tax-per-Mile” – umm: rather “Tax-per-Kilometer”-system for privately owned cars, already.
But while all the technical gizmos are in place and are being used to tax the crap out of commercial trucks already, no political party actually dares to swap this system over to taxing private cars, too – that is: as of yet – because they know, their political careers will rot in Hell, if they should ever really dare to do so.
Public pressure is the only efficient tool you have to stop this madness in it’s shoes. Tell your congressmen, they will be toast, if they should ever dare try implementing the taxation-per-mile of private cars.
That’ll work. Nothing else will.
Beware guys, there are already systems embedded in the infrastructure of UK motorways which are able to track the individual, this is not widely known in the UK. Also I understand that the newer cars on the market have a “chip” currently not used, which will if enabled lead to “mile taxing”. How long before you are bar coded at birth so Big Brother, knows who, where & when.
Just have all the Greenie cars to have an code that tells the power company the car is charging – then just tack on the required doubling of their electric bill. Better – when the person buys the car, just increase all their utility bills from electric to sewer to water by 175%. This include bikes and those wearing shoes – you know, all those things that use the road but don’t pay the gas tax.
There are better and cheaper ways for a government to raise money but no better way to CONTROL THE POPULATION.
Get wise America- vote this man out next election. He has killed Osama Bin Laden now he wants to kill American Freedom.
If Obama thinks it is a good system than we should do it. He is a wonderful man and would never use this against the people. Look what he has done for the people already. He even killed the most wanted man on Earth. What a brillant man, someone you can trust.The winner of the Nobel Price for Peace.
They are operating under the fantasy that a significant portion of vehicles will soon be electric and thus gas tax revenue (for highway maintenance) will go down. Is there any downward trend in gas sales? I think not. At the rate the new electrics are selling, you may never personally see one on the road. lol
The system has been running in Germany for years. It prices trucks per km at the moment (I think 18 cents/km). It used the gps system. Not satisfied with that the EU is launching its own gps system, called Galileo:
http://www.esa.int/esaNA/galileo.html
Probably because of mistrust of the US system but also because the Galileo system will have higher power output sats. And cost more (it would have been much cheaper to farm the sat construction out entirely)
The idea has been mooted in the UK:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1459230.ece
And met massive resistance via an online government petition:
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/News/Search-Results/Motoring-issues/Politics/Road-pricing-petition-closes/
However, you can bet your backside that the firmware in all production cars in the EU has been designed to be added-to.
The idea has not gone away, it is just running under the surface.
The UK has, for years, been installing fibre-optic cables along major roads….I doubt they need the massive capacity for signs and cameras:
http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/1299.aspx
Still, maybe they need it for the massive network of number-plate-scanning cameras the police have, some 10500:
http://www.kable.co.uk/national-anpr-data-centre-police-acpo-03feb10
Rattus Norvegicus says:
Greenie/civil libertarian huh? Must lead to some sleepless nights.
Get used to it. Big brother has made mighty strides in tracking and taxing the free people of the world since the 1960s. It has been incremental and generally accepted and, as each generation becomes aware of their surroundings, normal to them.
My children laugh and comment on my paranoia as I describe the freedom of my childhood in contrast to the ever-growing, ever-infringing government-as-constant-companion state that they live in. My oldest son uses plastic for every purchase, including a pack of gum. It doesn’t bother him that the card contains a RFID chip that could be used for locating his position or that his phone tracks him with it’s GPS or that his phone can be used to listen to him without his knowledge.
Automobile computers already track a variety of metrics that can be used to reveal your driving speed and location history. This info can be downloaded wirelessly and without your knowledge. Cameras and listening devices are everywhere.
The biggest problem with all of this is the passivity with which we accept this. A lot of people on this board just shrug their shoulders and say “it’s only a few dollars a year, what’s the big deal?”. The big deal is this: We are living in an age where freedom is being limited daily and the rule of law is being gutted daily and flaunted in our faces.
Government has stepped into private financial arangements and picked winners and losers without regard to law. Government has spirited citizens away to secret prisons and held them for years without charging them with crimes. Government tracks nearly every financial transaction and every on-line query made by every citizen. Government assasinates foreign nationals and brags openly about it (I know they always did this but, they kept it covert because it’s illegal).
We all know about this and we either don’t care or feel that there is nothing to do. So, as I … wait there’s a knock at my door …
What will they do with the data? It is a political goldmine! And is it possible for a government to get data for one purpose and not then use it in every way possible? If they know where you are, it is a short jump to wanting to know where you are, and why, and with whom. And lawyers, divorce and others, and private and public investigators will have their special search engines to mine the data. And, think of it, no one can be anonymous [in his own car] ever again! Yes, it sounds conspiratorial, but it is more the unintended consequences that will happen … and everyone who thinks about this knows it; but some don’t care, and others want it to happen … I care, and I hope I am not alone.
I don’t know about you people but if they tax me per mile i’m done being a good person in society. We need to stop this government, its going to break us and make us slaves. I will not be a slave i’m close enough now. We need to revolt we did it once before we need to do it again. And set up the same government with none career politicians, people who stay in office no more than two years, never to return to government, going back to there lives.
This is good – almost 100% recognize the true threat here is Big Brother. But as per usual the situation is far worse than you realize:
• the driver’s license takes something which is your constitutional right – the right to travel – and makes it “illegal” without government permission
• the “deal” you make when you sign your driver’s license application is fraudulent on the part of the government: failure to fully disclose the details and legal ramifications
• when you stand in front of the camera for your photo what the state isn’t telling you is: the “photo” is actually a scan of your facial shape ( according to a Colorado motor vehicle department lady … and she refused to tell me who gets access to that facial scan … )
• the feds have already snuck the tracking devices into all new cars – visible as the little “wing” on the roof
• the feds have snuck in another interesting capability: they can now turn off your car remotely
• allowing any government the capability of total 24/7 tracking and data-mining can only end badly – in a totalitarian death-grid skynet hell
Don’t just shake your head in disgust – fight back. Tear down the surveillance state and arrest big brother! Use technology against the globalists. Jam the nanny state right back into the pit of hell it came from.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/17165/eff_warns_big_brother_wants_to_be_your_friend
cryptogon.com
ronpaul2012.com
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/covert-gps-tracking-navigation.html
{ Covertly Track Vehicles – Fully Functional GPS Tracker Doubles As Navigation System
“The first GPS Tracker that doubles as a navigation system to enhance your business, personal, tracking, and navigation needs. Using our web-based platform, you can easily check on your vehicle’s location to ensure employee productivity, eliminate wasted time, and check where your kids or employees are going. No one has to know that this navigation system is covertly tracking their every move. Featuring 2-way communication, employees can communicate directly with headquarters through the touch screen. The LiveWire NavGenius is the only Web ready navigation system and GPS Tracker built into one easy-to-use device.” }
With a diesel vehicle, it is not hard to avoid being taxed at the pump. Someone I know, and he is not alone, collects used cooking oil from restaurants. Some days his exhaust smells distinctly fishy; on others, it has an appetizing sweet-and-sour aroma.Well, one should get a tax rebate for recycling. Waste not, want not.
Yes, as many commenters have already pointed out, Surely if it were about the CO2 produced, Tax on the Gas would have a much closer correlation than the miles travelled.
Taxing the miles travelled doesn’t reward efficiency.
No, this idea only isn’t crazy if it’s really just an excuse to get a GPS tracker in every vehicle.
Limitations on personal mobility & freedom for the sake of what ? Saving the planet? Give us a Break.
Curtailing mobility
Federal (excise?) tax on tires …
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Should be easy enough to ‘point this chip out’; can anybody confirm this with hard evidence?
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Ding ding ding!
We have a winner!
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Or friend from infowars .com (an Alex Jones site) needs to learn the distinction between rights and privileges …
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All it would take is an accurate reading every 10 secs (or even more) with and simply use the straight-line distance between … it’s going to ‘catch’ those long highway trips; the ‘driving in circles’ lost in the city not so much …
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Is there a commodities market in horse and buggies? At the rate things are going, that will be the most affordable means of travel – as long as there is no tax on methane emissions.
Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed.
Moron: a brainless idiot who votes for people who are obsessed with greed; who exhibit no quantity of brilliant behavior. Over the cliff followers.
A transponder in your car, followed by a chip up your…
I thought Barrack Obama said he was only going to raise taxes on the rich? Are any demographics of the population going to be exempt from this tax?