A Missing Piece With State Efforts to Test Drive Mileage Taxes

A personal favorite of mine is when a former governor of ours, Ed Rendell, switched regular funding for something vital with temporary funding we received from the feds for 4 years. The temporary funding ran out after he was out of office and the next governor had to raise taxes. Politics! What a dirty game!!!

SFC (Join to see) - Sounds alot like the Air Force problem of "Let's not tackle the long and difficult problems because I can't fix it fast enough to get an OPR bullet out of it."

Maj (Join to see) - Sadly, in Rendell’s case it was much more sinister. He took regular funding for one of his pet projects he couldn’t get funding for otherwise. I don’t know how I lasted so long as a civil servant considering how I despise such dishonorable actions.

Maj (Join to see) - Everyone wants value sir. Steering our Country into policies that favor one vehicle over another can be dangerous. Of course, everyone is yelling now “it is settled science” EV’s are the way to go. I don’t know about that. The attached article lists some of the cons of hydrogen engines, the point is all the cons seem to me like they can be worked through to a successful solution.

Now lets say EV’s get the share of the market we believe they will, do you think they will try to advance hydrogen engines, or try to kill them? The answer is obvious because of human nature: They will try to kill hydrogen engines because they are a threat to their share/profits. How will this further the goal of motivating society in the right direction?

The answer is an honest free market will guide into the right solutions. For better or worse that is what out Country is founded on and that is where the solution lays. Even if “temporarily the less expensive solution that isn’t the long term answer”, needs to be used to carry society over the rough bump, that’s what we need to do. As Trump said the cure can’t be worse that the illness. We can’t let the cost to society of a solution be so great that it turns our Country into a Socialist or Fascist state; then all is lost. I also need to comment the definition of fascism needs to be revised to take away “right-wing” from the definition of: “an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization”, and replaced with fanatical. The reason I say this is because of the current example of our Democrats (left wing) prosecuting their political enemies using to tools of government (FBI, DOJ, etc.). Fanatical is fanatical, left or right wing.

OMG! My wife is right: I just go on and on... when I have the time. Sorry about that.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=hydrogen+engines+facts&qs=SC&pq=hydrogen+engions&sk=SC3&sc=8-16&cvid=ECBCB73B42E14CD1BC36C05AF2D07A05&FORM=QBLH&sp=4&ghc=1

SFC (Join to see) - "An honest free market" is about the best way you can put that. We have folks who will scream until veins pop out of their heads about free market without realizing that we don't really have that. In ever industry there is always favoritism. I do think there are some things that don't need to be left to chance, though. But we should be careful what we consider in that list. We definitely need to be closer to a market that doesn't play favorites among businesses and approaches to solving problems. Those controls should be limited to things like ensuring employees are cared for and that we aren't destroying the planet as a side effect of our business.

As for cars, I'm a proponent of EVs but I don't think they are quite there yet. I still own a gas burning car. I also think fuel cell vehicles don't get their fair shake, but mostly because of the infrastructure needed to fuel them. We will get out of using fossil fuel burning vehicles eventually, but which direction that will take is yet to be fully revealed.

You definitely have more time than I do to debate these things. It's interesting discussion when we aren't in our political trenches or slinging mud at each other.

Maj (Join to see) It refreshing to have a decent conversation with someone without the politicians mentioned. Many here just can’t discuss the policies, to me that’s the secret sauce of life.

SFC (Join to see) - We all have our beliefs and we probably aren't going to sway anyone else. I like to focus my discuss mostly on topics that I know and focus on the facts or discuss more foundational ideas.

For older cars no, but every car has a life. Look at all the stuff they are putting in vehicles these days and the effects it is having on the car/truck purchase price. Do you think the auto manufactures will try to curry favor with the government that regulates them? Do you think some in the government are trying to make it too expensive to drive a vehicle, purchase ammunition… the list can go on.

That's a very good question. I'd love to hear some legal takes on this. I'm sure you could track and report distance without tracking location. We already track with the odometer, we just don't report it. I wonder if that would be sufficient for a court to say it's not violating the 4th.

Maj (Join to see) I had thought about odometer. Problem with that is apportionment. If I drive a three different states (which I do) how do we endure each states gets their "fair share?". This becomes especially problematic for OTR delivery.

SFC Casey O'Mally - We are definitely opening up a can of worms here. Businesses could probably track mileage by state more easily. Transportation businesses could probably just get that added into their software and self-report for apportionment. Individuals, however, probably couldn't do this across the board at all. For those of us who keep cars for many years it would just be year end minus year start odo reading. However, I see enough temp tags around here to know that some folks have multiple beater used cars throughout the year and couldn't be trusted to keep up with anything. And how do you police that? Personally, I don't think tracking usage is a viable means of taxing even with electronic tracking in place. Cars are just not the durable good for many that some of us envision them to be. It would be a nightmare of bureaucracy even without the 4th Amendment concerns.