United Liberty

According to an Associated Press report on Friday, President Obama has rejected the recommendation of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (who, by the way, is a Republican) to consider seeking a vehicle miles-traveled (VMT) tax as a replacement for the federal gasoline tax. A VMT tax would be levied based on the number of miles driven per vehicle, as opposed to the amount of gasoline purchased. A number of factors are said to be behind such an idea. According to the AP report:

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 told the AP.

“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 in the AP interview.

Apparently the trend towards vehicles with better mileage, including hybrids, electric cars, and other vehicles using alternative fuels, is having or will have the effect of diminishing receipts from the federal gasoline tax, contributing the urge of politicians to look for other ways to tax motorists besides the gasoline tax. It would seem to this writer that a VMT tax, were it enacted, would come in addition to a federal gasoline tax (perhaps with a reduction in the latter just to try to make taxpayers feel better), and not simply in place of it. But that would be the least of concerns about the VMT tax. The real concern lies with how the tax would be levied and collected.

In order for the VMT tax to be computed, there would have to be a way of determining the number miles driven for any given vehicle. This would most likely be accomplished by requiring the installation and use of GPS chips in every vehicle. The AP report continues:

A blue-ribbon national transportation commission is expected to release a report next week recommending a VMT tax.

The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.

The device would tally how much tax motorists owed depending upon their road use. Motorists would pay the amount owed when it was downloaded, probably at gas stations at first, but an alternative eventually would be needed.

Rob Atkinson, chairman of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, the blue-ribbon group that is developing future transportation funding options, said moving to a national VMT tax would take about a decade.

Some states (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Idaho) are already at various points in the formative stages of considering such a tax. The President’s current position notwithstanding, it seem clear that trends appear headed towards a VMT tax at the federal level, as well as at the state level. The method of tax collection certainly raises some very troubling issues, not the least of which is privacy. Policy-makers certainly seem to be aware of the concerns, responding in typical Orwellian fashion, as reported by the AP:

“Privacy concerns are based more on perception than any actual risk”, Atkinson said. “The satellite information would be beamed one way to the car and driving information would be contained within the device on the car, with the amount of the tax due the only information that’s downloaded,” he said.

Whether the information is beamed one way or two ways is not even the point. The point is that information regarding what kinds of roads and what kinds of traffic conditions, and even where one has driven, would be potentially available to a government bureaucrat acting on behalf of tax collection. Perhaps it might seem far-fetched, but GPS devices could potentially be used as tracking devises to restrict freedom of movement in a “national emergency”. It could be hoped that the Obama Administration wouldn’t engage in such abuse, and we probably could expect public assurances to that effect, but whether it’s the Obama Administration as opposed to some other administration isn’t even the point. The point is that government would be taking yet another dangerous step on the slippery slope towards restricting the freedom of movement, a power that could be abused by most any future administration.

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that a large, expensive government bureaucracy (either under the Department of Transportation or the IRS) would be required to enforce such a tax. Attempting to enforce such a tax would be a nightmare for the taxpayer, requiring an unprecedented degree of government intrusion worthy of Orwell’s 1984. Even so, it wouldn’t work, because no government bureaucracy can operate with the degree of efficiency that would be required to make a “success” out of such a monstrous program. The administration of such a tax would no doubt be done in the same fashion as done with the income tax and IRS, turning on its head yet again the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”. Furthermore, such a tax would be yet another violation of the right to use one’s own property.

In the current troubled times of economic crises and national “emergencies”, the trend is ever-increasing towards enormous pieces of legislation with all kinds of proposals that are effectively “buried” in the thousands of pages required, all but hidden from view from the citizens and the members of Congress. We’ve seen this most notably with the bailout (TARP) legislation last fall, and with the recent economic “stimulus” bill that was only made available to members of Congress by 12:30 a.m. on the night before the vote (in a very limited number of copies, with hand-writing in the margins!). It would not be surprising to see requirements for GPS chips in all vehicles (for the future purpose of a VMT tax) inserted into a future “stimulus” or bailout bill, or some other omnibus bill that would be frantically rushed through, probably under the suspension of the rules in the House, or possibly even by a House-Senate conference committee.

It is bad enough that politicians constantly seek novel ways to tax the people, even as we suffer in the future from that most insidious of hidden taxes, the inflation tax which destroys the value of our money. Taxes which require ever-increasing levels of government intrusion and violation of our privacy must be seen for the evil that they are (this includes, of course, the income tax), and the politicians and policy makers who advocate for these taxes must be exposed to the light of day. While we can be thankful that, for now, President Obama has rejected the VMT tax, it is crucial that we be ever watchful and vigilant against such a proposal, whether it comes at the state level or the federal level, lest we slide ever further down the slippery slope towards an Orwellian police-surveillance state.