Well, actually . . .
Friday, February 20th, 2009 By Mike MaurerSpeaking of free market proposals to solve command-and-control government problems, there is actually a good idea floating around that people generally hate. The basis of that hate, though, is more that their government is dishonest than the merits of the idea.
It’s paying for roads by the mile rather than through the gasoline tax. An Ohio story here. There are two excellent objections to the idea, the most important being privacy, the second being tax increases. In both cases the difficulty is mostly that government lies and everyone knows it.
Privacy could be handled readily, either by providing for anonymous units that didn’t have identifying information, or by programming any GPS system to record distance and road used, but not other location and time data. People don’t trust that, though, because they don’t trust their government not to secretly record it.
The double tax issue can be handled by simply repealing all per gallon gasoline taxes. People don’t trust that because they know government will always lie about “temporary” taxes and repeals (thank you, Bill Harris), and would simply reimpose the per gallon tax whenever it could get away with it.
If we did these two things, paying by the mile is a much better system because it takes the politics out of roadways. Busy roadways would have lots of money to pay for reconstruction, sparse roadways would be rebuilt rarely. That’s much better than a system where you have to be a friend of George Voinovich or Ted Strickland, or hire lobbyists to sit through endless committee hearings until the newspapers and citizens fall asleep so you can get your special favorite treatment passed into law.
(The other objection to the idea you hear raised is that the per mile approach doesn’t discourage gas guzzlers, but this is bogus. That’s not a bug, folks, it’s a feature. Taxes are for revenue collection for legitimate purposes, not to control behavior. If you feel a need to control behavior, then criminalize it or just shut up. It’s none of the government’s business whether we like gas guzzlers. Just focus on collecting fair taxes, spending the money reasonably, and staying out of our business, and we free people will make the other decisions just fine, thank you. )
February 20th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
This is a creepy proposal. There is no way the GPS information won’t eventually be used to track people. First, it will be for Amber Alerts, then National Security, and then something else, etc… Imagine–it would be against the law to drive anywhere without an activiated GPS unit in your vehicle, transmitting your every location. Hello, Big Brother!
BTW, why are roads so special that they have to be paid for by some sort of use tax (gas tax, GPS units, etc…)? Don’t we all benefit from roads even if we don’t personally use them? I pay the same school taxes whether I use the schools. In fact, I pay taxes for almost everything regardless of my use of a particular item or service.
In any event, if I get to choose between having generalized taxes pay for roads, or having the government be able to track my every move–that’s an easy choice!
February 21st, 2009 at 10:55 am
And yet I’m guessing you support electronic voting . . .
The privacy problem can be readily solved by avoiding GPS altogether. Just have units you buy for $10 cash at every convenience store and gas station, and as you drive it deducts a nickel each mile until it’s empty. We already have this sort of technology. You could capture cheaters the same way you do seat belt violators. There wouldn’t be any privacy issue at all. It’d just be electronic nickels. And given that they’re trying to get us to pay something like $1.50 per mile now, just to enable politicians to pay off their friends, we’ve got plenty of nickels to play with.
February 21st, 2009 at 11:44 am
No need for electronic voting. My candidates recently fared quite well without it, thank you.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Curse your triumphalism!
(BTW, I said $1.50 per mile, I meant $1.50 per gallon, which is about seven cents a mile, I’d guess.)
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
In many states, privacy is a myth because people have willingly given it away for the convenience of not having to stop at a toll booth. The question is whether there is an expectation of privacy on a public street/road/school/building and the answer, increasingly, is no.
https://www.ezpassva.com/(S(irfw1kuoamgi5kzv01yraaee))/forms/privacy.pdf
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Privacy is something of a myth in many ways. In addition to tracking your EZ Pass, government investigators can access your banking records, phone records, medical records, credit card and credit records, etc…
Still, at least at some level you can choose to wait in line and pay the toll, use cash, etc… It seems like taking it to another level to require a GPS to be placed in every vehicle.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:56 am
But we don’t need the GPS! If we don’t like that option, throw it out. Buy a blankety-blank toll bucket at Seven-Eleven and you’re fine. It’s the same as cash, which is to say, anonymous.
Now let’s talk about the cameras they’ll have at every intersection and every mile of the route . . .