Apparently, we're now conserving too much.
Can you say hypocrisy? Read the rest here.Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.
Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.
Most transportation experts see a vehicle miles traveled tax as a long-term solution, but Congress is being urged to move in that direction now by funding pilot projects.
For years we've been building wider and wider highways, adding lanes, straightening curves and flattening hills to accomodate an ever larger number of ever more incompetent drivers.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, we have steadfastly refused to teach people to drive.
Starting, steering and stopping, which is about all we teach or require drivers to learn, is not driving. Driving means everyone is taught, really taught the rules of the road - and required to obey them.
Lesser roads could accomodate more really good drivers, safely.
We have fostered programs like D.A.R.E. in our war on drugs -okay- but the major cause of teen deaths has been traffic accidents, not pot. Have we thus increased the emphasis on real, meaningful driver's ed to confront this fact? Hardly.
My late sister, Dorothy, was fond of saying, "Up jumped the devil!" Well, another devil has just jumped up. We have thousands of miles of super roads that we cannot afford to maintain. Especially since we are about to kill the road-building golden goose: gasoline tax revenue.
I won't say I told you so... because I never dreamed we would run out of gas tax dollars. I was concerned about my kids being killed by bad drivers... I didn't see that other devil hiding back there!
I am just constantly amazed at the contradiction that is liberalism.
ReplyDeleteThis is one excellent example. They love their gas tax revenues, always have, but keep working in so many ways to eliminate them. They poor billions into public transit, legislate better gas mileage and alternatively powered vehicles, refuse to drill for oil anywhere, then wonder why the revenues are down.
For the record, Obama has nixed the idea of a per mile tax, at least for now.