Let's spin some straw into gold. There is a hunger in the Whitehouse and state houses, on Wall Street and Main Streets for something, anything, to turn our financial distress and disappearing budgets into a future that restores hope, prosperity and confidence in government. I see the shimmering gold that keeps getting mistaken for impractical straw. You just have to get the right angle to the light.
The glimmer lasted only a few hours when late last week the AP reported that Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood said: ''We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled'' as a substitute for the gas tax.
But within hours of its first report, transportation department spokeswoman Lori Irving declared: "The policy of taxing motorists based on how many miles they have traveled is not and will not be Obama administration policy." And later this sentiment was reiterated later by President Obama's own Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: "It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration.''
And that shimmering straw was thrown back into its dark policy-wonk corner again. But hold on. Let's re-examine the implications of paying for roads by the mile rather than by the gallon.
Point zero (not a point for this story but we need to put it behind us so that you can focus): your locational privacy as you drive can be protected. Really. We can deliver on that so put it out of your mind.
Point number one: if we follow through with the Economic Stimulus Bill just signed, state and federal governments are going to be replacing a whole bunch of old fuel-inefficient cars with fuel efficient ones, quickly if they follow the promised timetable. And then the rest of us are supposed to be replacing ours similarly, if the car companies and the EPA follow through with their recent promises. And so begins the inexorable melting of the tried and trusty gas-tax that finances our transportation infrastructure. Inadequate gas taxes, inadequate infrastructure.
Secondly, a VMT tax requires technology. And because cars and roads go everywhere, so too will this technology need to be everywhere. And therein lies the gold!
Unless you are a communications industry nerd, you'll have missed a very short and far-sighted clause in the Economic Recovery Bill: smart-grid demonstrations projects - 50% of which will be financed by us, the taxpayers -- must "utilize open protocols and standards (including Internet-based protocols and standards) if available and appropriate."
Imagine if the VMT technology applied this same language. Instead of having a single purposed transponder in every car, you'd have a device that could communicate and interact with the also ubiquitous and also everywhere smart grid. Are you beginning to see the shine?
Imagine further, that at your own option, and thanks to the genius of the private sector, this device would be much like any smart phone or laptop. You could download any number of applications. In fact, you might consider this VMT infrastructure -- end user financed because we want to pick our own devices to suit our own needs -- to be the nub of a mobile internet.
And like the Internet, it is a network, routing data over cars, through smart grids, and throughout our environment, in a dynamic decentralized way. A network owned by no one, but powered by all of us. Just like the Internet.
And just like the Internet -- remember the glow emanating from the late 90s? -- this will be an economic engine like no other. Is this a fantasy? The military is using just this technology to connect people, tanks, and planes in a decentralized robust and secure network in Iraq right this minute.
What did our last President say? Bring it on! Bring on that VMT tax! But make it shimmer, turn it into real gold by requiring open standards, Internet protocols and opening up excess network capacity that is funded with our tax dollars. No, it won't happen overnight. That only happens in fairytales.
Robin Chase is a transportation entrepreneur, founder of Zipcar, GoLoco, and Meadow Networks.
People that drive more miles already pay more in gas taxes . . .
I guess they want that GPS system tracking on your car.
If we switch to miles traveled, my tax bill will go down, and yours will go up, to match mine, so you too have financial incentive to drive a big gas guzzler like mine.
Caveat: I do not actually drive a big gas guzzler, I like paying less tax than a big gas guzzler, won't be happy at all if they take it away from me...
Besides putting our present police state on steroids, we'd be quashing all the benefit of using more efficient vehicles. It would be also highly regressive in placing higher taxes on those forced, for economic reasons, to live farther from where they work -- not to mention the unfortunates who now have to gallivant among several workplaces to survive.
Sure, it would be great to get more vehicles off the roads, but we have no effective public transport beyond a few major cities, so driving isn't an option to be discouraged; it's the only way to get around.
I drive 45 miles each way to work. That is 90 miles a day. Now, if they figure a way to tax me on those miles (without the device, which will be either in my garbage or in pieces) then the next tax return I file WILL have every single mile deducted at whatever the going rate is.
AND I will switch over to an off-the-books position (easy to find in my field), and government will get NOTHING.
So, you can take your little device, and stick it where the sun don't shine. As far as I'm concerned, get out of my face, and get out of my pocket!
Why don't you tech companies work on stuff we actually NEED, instead of using your considerable resources to figure out new and more creative ways to rip us off?
If we needed to put satellites into orbit, I could understand public investment. But consumers can bear the cost of vehicle-mounted communications equipment as an OPTIONAL out-of-pocket expense. Not everybody wants their car to interact with social networking applications, especially if the government maintains a backdoor for the purposes of tax collection...
Taxing the miles removes the incentive for fuel efficiency!
This is a bad idea, but, how to pay for the highways?
Economically, how is that different from hiring people to dig holes and then fill them up?
We have used a gasoline tax in the past as a way to fund highways because it seemed a fair approximation of a usage fee. These days, when the amount of CO2 is of concern, it is a direct measure of how much CO2 an automobile puts into the atmosphere.
And it's dead-brain simple.
So why replace it (or even augment it) with a boondoggle of a direct measurement of miles traveled? How is that even fair, when the load a subcompact puts on the road is different than that of a hummer?
A combination of gasoline taxes and vehicle registration (fees by axle and by weight) provide an good means for paying for highway maintenance and construction, and the environmental impact of CO2 production. Whether they're raised or not (I favor raising them for a variety of reasons), they are efficient and effective.
This proposal is make work that serves no added benefit over the existing methods.
Anyway, I agree the gas tax is the best way to go. If they are measuring mileage, are they going to spot check vehicles along the highway to make sure odometer cables haven't been disconnected?
Robin is suggesting is that we implement the infrastructure financing mechanism in a way that has side benefits even bigger than just the fair and rational financing. How can anyone argue with that?
"I will not destroy government property!"
with chalk on a screeching black board.
:-)