Big brother wants to know where you’re going and where you’ve been.
Democrats and the Obama administration are considering a mileage tax to replace the per gallon gasoline tax. There can only be one purpose for such a tax, and that is to monitor where you are going and when.
I know, break out the tin foil hats, everyone, Daily Danet is off his meds. But humor me and engage your brain for a minute. If Democrats really think that gasoline (or more precisely, internal combustion) causes Global Warming™ and believe, therefore that a tax will reduce consumption of gasoline, why do you need to know how many miles someone travels? Gasoline consumption and miles traveled are independent variables.
Let me explain. Take two hypothetical people: Dan, who drives a real truck, say a 2010 Dodge Ram 1500 V-8 HEMI that gets 18 MPG, goes from zero to “what seems to be the problem officer?” in 6.8 seconds, hauls 1850 lbs of payload, tows 9,100 pounds up an incline and bangs your sister on prom night.
The second guy, let’s call him Albert, drives a 2008 Toyota Prius. that has two widdle itty bitty engines and gets about 36 mpg; has all the horsepower of a hamster on NoDoz and pees its pants when your sister’s name is mentioned.
Dan and Albert work together. Dan lives about 10 miles from the office. Albert lives in a hippie commune 20 miles from the office. On an average week, Dan drives about 100 miles, (10 miles to work each day, 10 miles back, 5 times per week). Albert, however, drives 200 miles (20 miles each way, 5 times per week). As Dan drives a real truck, he needs to buy 5.56 gallons of gas per week (100 miles divided by 18 mpg), while energy conscientious Albert who drives an Earth-loving hippie-mobile has to buy only 5.56 gallons (200 divided by 36 mpg). (See what I did there?)
Under the current gasoline tax system, manly Dan and hippie Albert live their lives and use the same amount of gasoline, even though they travel different distances. Assuming for the sake of clarity that the gas tax is $.50 per gallon. Dan and Albert would pay $2.78 per week.
If, however, you follow the moron logic of the Democrats and tax people by the mile (let’s assume a $.03 per mile tax), Dan would have to pay $3 per week ($0.03 times 100 miles) and poor dumb Albert would have to pay $6 per week, even though they used the same amount of gasoline.
Just to pile on to this idiocy, you would have to add the cost of the infrastructure of reporting and enforcement, mandating GPS for all cars (not to mention the civil rights law suits that would surely follow) and on top of all of that, you would not do a damn thing to discourage the sale of gasoline. If anything, people would now be free to buy old gas guzzlers without GPS receivers. And on top of all of that, the first thing I would do (right after Con Ed raised my electric rates) is buy a diesel generator–and fuel it tax free!
As I said at the outset, if you assume (and I grant that this is a leap of faith) that these people are competent, the only reason to move from a per gallon gas tax to a per mile gas tax is to monitor and track you. Sure, at the outset, we would be told that the government would just get a number per month. But then we would learn that, with a warrant, they could access a criminals GPS, and then we would learn that they could store everyone’s GPS data, as long as they didn’t single anyone out. Eventually, you wouldn’t think twice when you got in the mail your monthly notice: “President for life Obama says you drove [17] miles over your quota last month. Please report to reeducation class on [June 15th] at [Michelle Obama High School]. Resistance is futile”
Happy Independence Day.