Let’s Rebuild America

[US71]

I'm not okay with giving Big Brother a network of sensors tracking every vehicle, all the time.  You know such information would get used for nefarious purposes.

Such as?

In MY case, when I go driving to get lost from the world, I don't want someone knowing where I'm at.

I also wouldn't want them to know where I'm buying my weed   

[Rothman]

I'm not okay with giving Big Brother a network of sensors tracking every vehicle, all the time.  You know such information would get used for nefarious purposes.

Such as?

In MY case, when I go driving to get lost from the world, I don't want someone knowing where I'm at.

I also wouldn't want them to know where I'm buying my weed   

How are those nefarious purposes, especially since marijuana is becoming more legal as time passes?

[DJStephens]

The state fuel tax varies widely from state to state, and region to region.  Believe Pennsylvania's and California's are the highest, and Missouri's and South Carolina's the lowest.  Although that could be wrong.   Another issue is how much should be "siphoned" off for transit and bike/ped projects?  While some have merit, others such as Bill Richardsons and Jerry Browns pet trains are pure pork.   Believe Brown's train is currently grinding to a halt due to running out of money and no federal bailout forthcoming from the Trump Administration to keep it afloat.   

[vdeane]

I am a millennial that no longer owns a vehicle, but does occasionally borrow a vehicle and occasionally puts gas in said vehicle, I can tell you that Michigan's gas prices are comparable to California due to Governor Snyder passing a hike on our gas taxes to 41 cents a gallon (I believe, I am not 100% sure).  For that hike, we consistently have the some of the worst roads compared to Indiana and Ohio.  I'm not sure more gas taxes are the answer, because I sure don't see them benefiting anyone in Michigan besides the fat cats.

I think our governments, federal and state, need to spend their money smarter.  I think there is plenty of money to go around, I just think our politicians make bad decisions with the money they have.  It is a virtual impossibility for the United States to actually go broke.  I do wish that a comprehensive infrastructure plan would be worked out.

To be fair, raising the gas tax is not like waving a magic wand.  The roads aren't going to magically repair themselves... that takes time for the state to do.  And if the DOT didn't even have enough funding to keep the system from deteriorating further before the increase, they may still not have enough to actually improve the condition.

In regards to the gas tax, there's the small but growing number of electric cars that don't pay it. How do they carry their share of the weight?

Get rid of tolls and the gas tax and institute an appropriate VMT tax. :>

I'm not okay with giving Big Brother a network of sensors tracking every vehicle, all the time.  You know such information would get used for nefarious purposes.

Such as?

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if roadgeek travel patterns become deemed "suspicious" at some point in the future.  All it would take is a means of detailed tracking plus another terror attack or a ramping up of the war on drugs.  There's only so many times you can loop through an area or do U turns before I would expect a police officer (or algorithm programmed for the police) to deem me "suspicious" (I know I would if I was in the position and had never heard of roadgeeks, which most people haven't) and trigger a traffic stop and search of my vehicle, and I'd rather avoid that inconvenience.  For example, in a recent trip, I passed through the Village of Montgomery no less than three times, two of them in the same direction.  In a trip I took last year, I wound up on a single stretch of US 7 no less than three times as well, two of them within five minutes (had to turn around and deadhead to clinch MA 7A).  Thankfully the police officer controlling traffic at the work zone did not seem to notice.

[triplemultiplex]

Public-private partnerships = it costs more.  Now the infrastructure is owned by a company that needs to charge more than just what it takes to cover the costs of operation.  They need to make a profit.  That profit comes from our wallets.

VMT tax; that can be done without tracking the location of a vehicle at all times.  Just like the gas company reads your meter, someone can read your odo once or twice a year and send you the bill.  Not precise, but it fundamentally accomplishes the same thing as a gas tax; travel more = pay more.
When it comes to the big brother problem, we've already given away the farm on that item.  They don't need to track your car for nefarious purposes because you have a damn phone in your pocket.

If one wants money for roads, one needs to go to where the money has been piling up for decades. 

[hbelkins]

VMT tax; that can be done without tracking the location of a vehicle at all times.  Just like the gas company reads your meter, someone can read your odo once or twice a year and send you the bill.  Not precise, but it fundamentally accomplishes the same thing as a gas tax; travel more = pay more.

Wouldn't work very well for states if you travel out of state a lot. And it wouldn't work very well for the feds if you drive in Canada or Mexico.

[triplemultiplex]

Wouldn't matter if everyone payed the same rate for their VMT tax regardless of their state.
The key is it doesn't matter where you drive, it's how much you drive.

[hbelkins]

Wouldn't matter if everyone payed the same rate for their VMT tax regardless of their state.
The key is it doesn't matter where you drive, it's how much you drive.

But how do you split that up among various jurisdictions? And what right would the United States government have to tax travel in a foreign country?

[triplemultiplex]

Easy.  Distribution of funds is based on need.
Population + traffic + connectivity + existing condition + some other things I'd have to think about more = the funds available to a region.

International travel is a weird exception.  Read the odo when you leave; read it again when you return; that amount is deducted from your total.

No state, county or city should expect to rely on this as their sole funding mechanism.  They may still have some tolls or fuel taxes or registration fees.  But it will be consistent and will grow with traffic regardless of what kind of traffic it is.

[kalvado]

Wouldn't matter if everyone payed the same rate for their VMT tax regardless of their state.
The key is it doesn't matter where you drive, it's how much you drive.

But how do you split that up among various jurisdictions? And what right would the United States government have to tax travel in a foreign country?

This is resolvable. Odometer fraud, however, is already wide spread...

[vdeane]

VMT tax; that can be done without tracking the location of a vehicle at all times.  Just like the gas company reads your meter, someone can read your odo once or twice a year and send you the bill. 

Of course, then you're replacing a simple tax that is painlessly and invisibly added to the amount you pay for gas, for one that you specifically have to fork money over for periodically.  Much more painful, even if it's the exact same dollar amount.  Also much more susceptible to fraud.  There's a reason why gas is taxed at the terminal level, rather than the retail or distributor level, after all.  That just gets much worse at the individual level.

When it comes to the big brother problem, we've already given away the farm on that item.  They don't need to track your car for nefarious purposes because you have a damn phone in your pocket.

At least that way, they specifically have to ask a private company for the info, which means they're either the NSA, or they're already suspicious of you.  And a phone can be left home, turned off, and for some models, even have the battery removed.  Tracking for a mileage tax will probably be hotwired into police databases with algorithms watching everything.  And I'd certainly like to work towards rolling back both government and private intrusions in privacy, not continue down the same course.

No state, county or city should expect to rely on this as their sole funding mechanism.  They may still have some tolls or fuel taxes or registration fees.  But it will be consistent and will grow with traffic regardless of what kind of traffic it is.

A mileage tax is not a federal-only thing.  States want to switch too.

[webny99]

I'm not okay with giving Big Brother a network of sensors tracking every vehicle, all the time.  You know such information would get used for nefarious purposes.

Such as?

In MY case, when I go driving to get lost from the world, I don't want someone knowing where I'm at.

I also wouldn't want them to know where I'm buying my weed   

I have at least one of those problems, too

[J N Winkler]

In MY case, when I go driving to get lost from the world, I don't want someone knowing where I'm at.

I also wouldn't want them to know where I'm buying my weed   

How are those nefarious purposes, especially since marijuana is becoming more legal as time passes?

Marijuana is not actually legal at the federal level.  It was only officially tolerated during the Obama administration.

The blasé attitude about continuous surveillance fails to take into account the imbalances in automation advantage that result, and the consequent temptation for law-enforcement agencies to use surveillance data for short-term ends that have the long-term effect of undermining policing by consent.  To cite just a few of the issues involved:

*  The quantity of data gathered does not necessarily translate to reliability.  For example, I have a bill from the Kansas Turnpike Authority that says I entered the tolled zone at the Haysville-Derby interchange on such and such a date and then exited at the Southern Terminal about twenty minutes later.  But I also have a GPS log that says I actually entered at the South Wichita interchange.  This means that by failing to read my K-Tag correctly at South Wichita, KTA essentially gave me a break on the toll, but this kind of thing could easily go the other way, and I would have no ability to challenge the inaccuracy without effectively surveilling myself using tools that offer reliability and resolution equal to or better than that used by the surveilling agency.

*  Any authority with the ability to surveil inevitably seeks the ability to retain surveillance data indefinitely and to resist disclosure to the person being surveilled.  There are many ways it can be used for petty victimization.  For example, there is a neighborhood in my city that has 100% camera surveillance that is run by the police.  If I became an outspoken critic of police shootings, it would be the simplest thing in the world for the police to use machine vision to detect every time I have driven in my car in the surveillance zone and then issue me a ticket for each and every time I turn on my signal 99 ft in advance of a turn instead of the required 100 ft.

*  The sheer weight of data that is available through programmatic surveillance has a way of undermining even strong data protection rights, such as the right to prevent disclosure of your personal data to third parties, the right of disclosure of how your personal data is used by businesses and governmental agencies that hold it, the right to obtain a copy of all your personal data that is held by others, and the right to challenge personal data that you believe is false.  Not all of these rights are safeguarded in data privacy legislation even in European countries, where such protections are far stronger than in the US.



As regards the OP, I personally think the fuel tax increases talked about are too modest.  Tripling fuel taxes and then indexing to inflation was the federal recommendation during the G.W. Bush administration.  I think we are still at least two decades away from the point where the internal combustion engine declines enough in road transport market share that we need to begin transitioning to a different charging regime.  Charging according to use should be maintained, and I would not object to VMT-based charging subject to adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of surveillance data.  And realistically, those safeguards also need to address the massive amounts of data that tech companies collect through smartphones and the car companies collect through wireless-enabled onboard systems.

The surveillance/privacy see-saw will continue regardless of what safeguards are actually in place, but from a civil-rights perspective I would be much happier with a VMT tax on top of rock-solid data protection jurisprudence rather than a VMT tax as things exist right now.

As regards the possible uses of taxes for behavior modification, I don't disagree in principle with Pigouvian taxation.  However, there are concerns (e.g., Jevons' paradox) about using it to fund infrastructure that permits additional consumption that is liable to the Pigouvian tax.  I also disagree that we should increase fuel taxes to discourage SUVs by analogy with increasing cigarette taxes to discourage smoking.  Smoking is (generally speaking) all negatives, but while SUVs have some disadvantages (aggressivity in crashes, higher degree of visual occlusion), they fulfill families' genuine need for transportation of multiple passengers and bulky objects.

We also need to think in explicitly countercyclical terms about the scheduling of infrastructure spending.  We should have been spending more on capital expansion of the highway system at the start of Obama's first term, because the economy was still in a slump and the added investment would have had the effect of further resisting contraction of demand.  Now that the economy is booming, we need to think more in terms of fiscal retrenchment--increasing taxes, not cutting them, to pay down debt--and establishing a pool of ready-to-go work so that contracts can be let and construction can begin (with deficit financing if necessary) the next time the economy dips into a slump.  Pro-cyclical policy not only increases social misery and feeds the problem of long-term unemployment but also limits growth since the economy has to start from a smaller size at the low point of each slump.

[barcncpt44]

A draft White House infrastructure plan leaked today and you can read it at: https://www.axios.com/draft-white-house-infrastructure-plan-1516644555-0d43f417-6ccd-43f7-9eae-3ccbe711314d.html

Among the provisions for roads:
- Allow states flexibility to toll on interstates and reinvest toll revenues on infrastructure
- Reconcile the grandfathered restrictions on use of highway toll revenues with current law
- Provide states flexibility to commercialize interstate rest areas

[kphoger]

Wouldn't matter if everyone payed the same rate for their VMT tax regardless of their state.
The key is it doesn't matter where you drive, it's how much you drive.

But how do you split that up among various jurisdictions? And what right would the United States government have to tax travel in a foreign country?

Exactly.  Imagine living in Mexico full-time on a visa, with a US-tagged vehicle.  You spend 50 weeks out of the year driving outside of the United States, only coming into the US to visit family and renew your paperwork.  It would certainly be unfair to tax you based on your odometer readings.

International travel is a weird exception.  Read the odo when you leave; read it again when you return; that amount is deducted from your total.

Who is going to read the odometer when you leave and enter the country?  Do you imagine CBP is going to be given the responsibility of recording your odometer for taxation purposes?  Doubt it.

[vdeane]

*  Any authority with the ability to surveil inevitably seeks the ability to retain surveillance data indefinitely and to resist disclosure to the person being surveilled.  There are many ways it can be used for petty victimization.  For example, there is a neighborhood in my city that has 100% camera surveillance that is run by the police.  If I became an outspoken critic of police shootings, it would be the simplest thing in the world for the police to use machine vision to detect every time I have driven in my car in the surveillance zone and then issue me a ticket for each and every time I turn on my signal 99 ft in advance of a turn instead of the required 100 ft.

Exactly.  This point cannot be understated.  If authority has reason to dislike you, they WILL find something, and every erosion of privacy makes it easier and easier.

[Rothman]

I actually think the better point was that he would be for a VMT tax with appropriate safeguards.

[triplemultiplex]

- Allow states flexibility to toll on interstates and reinvest toll revenues on infrastructure

I support this, even though a lot of folks here are pulling out their hair at reading those words.

Exactly.  Imagine living in Mexico full-time on a visa, with a US-tagged vehicle.  You spend 50 weeks out of the year driving outside of the United States, only coming into the US to visit family and renew your paperwork.  It would certainly be unfair to tax you based on your odometer readings.

Well, sucks for the 10 people who actually do that.  What a silly hypothetical. 

Who is going to read the odometer when you leave and enter the country?  Do you imagine CBP is going to be given the responsibility of recording your odometer for taxation purposes?  Doubt it.

It's one more box to fill out.  Hardly a burden. 

[J N Winkler]

- Allow states flexibility to toll on interstates and reinvest toll revenues on infrastructure

I support this, even though a lot of folks here are pulling out their hair at reading those words.

I don't support this part, except under extremely narrow circumstances, for two reasons:  (1) interstate commerce being undermined through "welcome stranger" tolling (tolls have already been proposed for I-15 in Arizona and I-80 in Wyoming); and (2) reliance on tolling will not secure the capacity expansion we need because most of the new rural corridors that would pay for themselves in time savings if built as Interstates are not toll-viable (this issue surfaced with the Trans-Texas Corridor).

A broader issue is that traffic and revenue estimates are difficult to compile and are inherently unreliable.  For example, in the mid-noughties Wilbur Smith accumulated an ultimately damaging reputation for preparing over-optimistic T&R estimates for agencies looking to build toll facilities that eventually required tax subsidy.  Meaningful risk transfer to the private sector is not possible because toll roads (especially point-to-point toll roads running through rural areas) are risky investments and the government is the guarantor of last resort.  It saves a lot of trouble and also improves usage of such facilities for them to be publicly owned and open to travel at no charge additional to the fuel tax.

Any reliance on toll finance for capacity expansion should arguably be limited to congestion pricing in the major metropolitan areas.

(In fairness, the idea of relying on tolls for capacity expansion is not something that has changed between the Obama and Trump administrations.  Some types of bad ideas attract persistent bipartisan support and this is one of them.)

Exactly.  Imagine living in Mexico full-time on a visa, with a US-tagged vehicle.  You spend 50 weeks out of the year driving outside of the United States, only coming into the US to visit family and renew your paperwork.  It would certainly be unfair to tax you based on your odometer readings.

Well, sucks for the 10 people who actually do that.  What a silly hypothetical.

It really isn't.  There are cities in Mexico, like Rocky Point in Sonora state, that are heavily populated with part-time American residents, and it is much easier even for residents to keep a car under American registration than to try to import it to Mexico permanently.  It is the policy of the Mexican government to prevent the development of a secondhand market in US-owned vehicles.

Who is going to read the odometer when you leave and enter the country?  Do you imagine CBP is going to be given the responsibility of recording your odometer for taxation purposes?  Doubt it.

It's one more box to fill out.  Hardly a burden.

The more serious issue is that unless we rely on self-assessment, like we do with income tax, we would have to impose exit controls so that CBP officers could take odometer readings from US-registered vehicles.  And there are still plenty of vehicles on the roads dating from the mid-1990's that have frozen odometers as a result of the automakers' stumbling transition to plastic odometer gear wheels.  As an example, my current daily driver has been stuck at about 127,000 miles for almost five years now.  (I actually have a GPS record of miles driven since then that I believe is accurate to within 300 miles, but I can promise you that 99% of car owners similarly positioned are not tracking their mileage.)

[kalvado]

- Allow states flexibility to toll on interstates and reinvest toll revenues on infrastructure

I support this, even though a lot of folks here are pulling out their hair at reading those words.

I don't support this part, except under extremely narrow circumstances, for two reasons:  (1) interstate commerce being undermined through "welcome stranger" tolling (tolls have already been proposed for I-15 in Arizona and I-80 in Wyoming); and (2) reliance on tolling will not secure the capacity expansion we need because most of the new rural corridors that would pay for themselves in time savings if built as Interstates are not toll-viable (this issue surfaced with the Trans-Texas Corridor).

A broader issue is that traffic and revenue estimates are difficult to compile and are inherently unreliable.  For example, in the mid-noughties Wilbur Smith accumulated an ultimately damaging reputation for preparing over-optimistic T&R estimates for agencies looking to build toll facilities that eventually required tax subsidy.  Meaningful risk transfer to the private sector is not possible because toll roads (especially point-to-point toll roads running through rural areas) are risky investments and the government is the guarantor of last resort.  It saves a lot of trouble and also improves usage of such facilities for them to be publicly owned and open to travel at no charge additional to the fuel tax.

Any reliance on toll finance for capacity expansion should arguably be limited to congestion pricing in the major metropolitan areas.

(In fairness, the idea of relying on tolls for capacity expansion is not something that has changed between the Obama and Trump administrations.  Some types of bad ideas attract persistent bipartisan support and this is one of them.)

My other concern would be that tolls would be redirected to some very remotely related projects. MTA already toll Manhattan river crossings to pay for whatever; PA turnpike subsidy for city transportation is another such situation.
I am dead sure NYS would love to rip off everyone around to pay for NYC subway; and Tappan Zee bridge financing is still a question. Now if tolls becoming a go-to method for each and every state need would be legalized...

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

[US71]

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

I-49 was built with Walmart, Tyson, and JB Hunt in mind.  So was XNA.

[jeffandnicole]

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

You know how Walmart became a billion dollar company?

By not wasting money.

Walmart is providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Walmart's trucks are purchasing plenty of fuel, providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Why should they donate their profits, on top of all the taxes they're already paying?

[US71]

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

You know how Walmart became a billion dollar company?

By not wasting money.

Walmart is providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Walmart's trucks are purchasing plenty of fuel, providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Why should they donate their profits, on top of all the taxes they're already paying?

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

You know how Walmart became a billion dollar company?

By not wasting money.

Walmart is providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Walmart's trucks are purchasing plenty of fuel, providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Why should they donate their profits, on top of all the taxes they're already paying?

Minimum Wage, Associates on Welfare (while they oppose welfare), "I'll fire anyone who cashes the (overtime) check"  (Sam Walton).

[jeffandnicole]

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

You know how Walmart became a billion dollar company?

By not wasting money.

Walmart is providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Walmart's trucks are purchasing plenty of fuel, providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Why should they donate their profits, on top of all the taxes they're already paying?

We have no money to fix our roads, but plenty of money for corporate handouts. Let Walmart fix the roads.

Only if only...

They are after all a billion dollar company. They should really do more for the state's transportation, in fact most of the countries top food and transportation (trucking) is here in Arkansas. They should band together and help the state out!

You know how Walmart became a billion dollar company?

By not wasting money.

Walmart is providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Walmart's trucks are purchasing plenty of fuel, providing Arkansas with plenty of tax money.  Why should they donate their profits, on top of all the taxes they're already paying?

Minimum Wage, Associates on Welfare (while they oppose welfare), “I’ll fire anyone who cashes the (overtime) check” (Sam Walton).

How much do you think a cashier should be getting paid?

And minimum wage is paid by countless numbers of employers.  Heck, the entire eat-in restaurant industry pays less than minimum wage because they had a special exception carved out for them.  Maybe Applebees should be rebuilding America's roads as well.