Michigan considered hybrid road fee but nixed it for now

Use of roads could most fairly paid by weight and distance. Fuel consumption is the best surrogate for this. Unfortunately some roads are much more expensive per vehicle mile, and fairness isn't really part of the taxing equation.

higher gasoline consumption also adds to the negative the balance of trade and increases pollution. To adequately set the fair tax on gasoline used these things should be taken into account. But politicians seem to get hold of these revenue streams and do not apply them to the problems.

For road use a registration fee based on weight and location as well as gasoline taxes would be most fair and easy to administer. If you take into account things like the public good based on other costs registration fees on hybrids and electric vehicals should be lower or negative and gas taxes should be higher than they are. The US federal government still has these tax rebates for electric and plug in hybrids, but they have run out for new hybrid owners of the popular models.

 

Actually, NC was seeing a drop in gasoline tax income prior to the economy going south. If you remember when gas prices rose to $4.00 per gallon, consumption dropped off, along with gas tax income. NC complains that every time gas prices go up, consumption and gas tax income go down. The current economy has just added to the problem.

I do not know what the best answer is but I agree that we need to keep our roads maintained or they may end up in the same shape some of our bridges are in.

 

Ideas for this problem are - a) have a fixed plus percentage on the gas tax, b) do tax leveling, c) cut spending. I think tax leveling is the best idea since it collects extra tax money when the economy is better. The problem is forecasting at the state level is extremely bad. Yes I think a slightly higher fixed gas tax is the best answer. This however should be phased in (so drivers can shift to more efficient cars) and is not politically as popular as taxing hybrids.

 

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But Wait, Wait!...You're letting logic enter into the discussion...Gotta be carefull!!:nono:

 

I remember the time of surpluses and "rainy day" funds - they were quickly erased by tax cuts and TABOR. Now it's impossible to put money aside for a rainy day - much less a rainy YEAR.

 

This is part of the Karl Marx income reallocation program. The next step wil be to tax bicycles and shoes because they don't generate gasoline tax revenue.

 

You know we spent about a trillion dollars fighting a war about oil...I think some of that money should be recouped by imposing a tax on Hybrids.

 

Two things account for 90% of road wear...
1) Trucks
2) Time (temperature changes)

Cars do very little road damage and worrying about nickle and diming hybrid owners is just what we don't need. I bet just figuring out how to collect that tax will take almost as money as it takes in. That creates more government waste and unnecessary taxes. Not enough tax money for roads? Raise DIESEL taxes.

 

I agree that a gasoline tax should not be the way to maintain roads. A gas guzzling car is doing no more damage to the road than an electric car. When it comes to vehicle damage, it`s weight, really.
Japan seems to be doing it quite well. There is a road tax based on the weight of the vehicle and it`s load capacity - another based on engine size and emissions - and a basic vehicle tax that distinguishes between use (private vs commercial / industrial). There is also a fee to use the largest expressways, much higher for trucks than normal vehicles (it`s just as easy not to use the expressway if you`re in a regular car, but much faster for trucks to use it so they pay for the upkeep in fees.)

A lot of people see it as unfair, because it costs money just to own a car... But do people really need to have 3 or 4 old clunkers sitting around rotting in front of their house? The system discourages unnecessary cars, encourages cleaner and more efficient cars (taxes are lower for them), and encourages the use of public transportation which in turns encourages improvement to the public systems. It also encourages shipping to make use of rail or more efficient trucks.

And the roads are well kept to boot.

 

I am not sure that we can trust politicians to use the money generated by a specific tax in the way it was intended to be used. My state has 5 oil refineries, due to Alaska crude and that our deep water sea ports can accommodate the oil tankers. A few years ago the state decided much of the pollution in Puget Sound was due to oil runoff from roads, so they imposed a 0.9% tax on fuel from the refineries. Last year the legislature had something like an 8.5 billion shortfall to make up, so they reallocated that money to the state general fund. Temporarily, of course.

Now they are talking about increasing the tax to 3% and will use 70% of it for the state general fund. Maybe the other 30% will go to cleaning up the Sound but I sure wouldn't bet on that! This split is supposed to taper down to where the full amount will go to cleanup uses in a few years but, again, it is controlled by politicians and I don't think any of them, regardless of which political stripe is on their back, has ever found a tax they didn't love and their best way to spend it is through the state general fund.

We already have the highest state gas tax in the country in Washington State and the most recent increase was put in place over two stages with the intent to do some specific maintenance and road replacement. Of course most of it will go into two projects in the Seattle area. King County (Seattle) is where a very high percentage of the votes in the state are located. I have heard the argument that most of the gas tax is generated there but if the roads in rural Eastern Washington, where the food that all those people eat comes from, are not usable how high will their food bills be? But I do think that is the thing to increase (the gas tax) as it directly impacts those who use the roads the most and operate the heaviest vehicles.

 

I imagine that the Prius does even less damage to roads and highways than the average car because of the conservative driving and tires.

 

The whole concept is flawed - these "specific" taxes are never specific enough to exactly fit the target, and rarely sufficient to cover the entire expense. So there's always some shifting of funds from one area to the other, and people b*tch because the taxes they paid for one thing are being used for another, or they b*tch because they don't want to pay more taxes for the thing which is underfunded.

People want everything for free (or paid for by someone else) - but that's not reality. Politicians want our votes, so they give us more stuff than we give them money to pay for. This is not because they are douchbags (even though they are), but because WE WANT THEM TO.

The American people need to man up and stop putting the blame on someone else - we asked for low taxes and more free stuff, and the politicians gave it to us.

 

I wonder if the proponents of this tax in the Michigan Legislature all drive Ford Excursions?

A flat $75 across the board is also unfair, I'm sure some hybrid owners drive 25,000 miles a year, some 15,000 and some 5,000. Why should they all pay the same tax, and thus get penalized even more for driving less?

 

Hi All,

The problem with this tax, is the present gasoline tax greatly favors heavy vehicles.

A heavy vehicle does tremendously more damage to roads than light cars. The roads are only so strong, and only have so much fatigue life. The greater the stess, the shorter the fatique life. Its been shown by studies done by Civil Engineers that the heaviest vehicles do the greatest damage to roads. This was done by studying road ripples, and taking the FFT . The results pointed out that the period of the ripples corresponded to the frequency wheels would pass a spot due to heavy trucks. One need only drive Il Rte 83 in Elk Grove Village, IL to get a first hand understanding of this. Especially approaching stop lights.

Think about it, a truck slightly flexes the road allot more than a car. The more the flex, the less life the roadway will have, and its really non-linear. Which only makes sense. Any mechanical strength issue has a limit, beyond which the part breaks. Use a metal part at 50 percent of the limit and the part lasts forever, in effect. Its not quite that simple as with a metal part , with roads, but this illustrates the point.

Consequently, a heavy truck, or a vehicle accellerating at heavy G's is going to tear the road surface with more force, and cause it to fail many times faster. But, they only pay the same rate for fuel as the rest of us. A 18 wheeler truck gets like 8 mpg, but a Prius about 50. That is a factor of 6, but they wear out roads allot faster.

Any variable fuel tax should consider not only vehicle mileage, but also vehicle weight to be fair.

Cars that use twice as much fuel, needs twice as many 18 wheeler fuel delivery trucks. So, hybrid cars help keep fuel tanker road damage down as well. So, its really not simple between cars and hybrid cars either.

A simple tax increase for Hybrids is not only unfair to hybrid owners, its a negative impact in efforts to reducing gasoline consumption. The more gas is used, the more gasoline and diesel will cost and that makes everything more expensive, not just transportation.

 

donee,

That is by far the most logical and reasonable explanation written thus far. Naturally, the truck lobby will disagree.

Thanks again.

 

This is true. The truck lobby will point out that trucking is essential for our national economy, and that any increase in taxes will have a negative effect on commerce.

It's all part of our general unwillingness to pay what something really costs. Everyone tries to socialize the costs while privatizing the profits. Trucking companies want us to pay for the roads, railroads want us to pay for the tracks, airlines want us to pay for the airports, and bankers want us to pay for their risky decisions.

Most of us would be shocked if we really had to pay the true cost for everything. Can you imagine the cost of gasoline if it included environmental and political costs?

Tom

 

I'm not sure what your point is here. Basically that is what we have now with just the gas tax. Higher MPG cars pay less tax to go the same distance as lower MPG cars. About as simple as it can be.