Incoming Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has suggested taxing Americans for the number of miles they drive, a policy he endorsed as a Democratic presidential candidate.
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Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., acknowledged "privacy concerns" related to implementing a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) system but said it should be considered as a potential replacement for the gas tax.
I can’t disagree with any of that. I have the same privacy concerns. And I know most conservatives have been in a tizzy ever since the Democrats first proposed a mileage based tax.
But in the words of our current President, “c’mon, man”.
A mileage based tax became inevitable when the first electric car rolled off the assembly line.
I don’t like it any more than you do. But not liking something is different from not accepting reality. Or at least it used to be.
The government gets quite a bit of money from our gasoline taxes. And that money is used to build roads, among other things. Now, if people stop using gasoline, but are still using the roads, that puts the government in a little bit of a jam. They still want a “road use tax”, which is essentially what the gasoline tax was, but now they don’t have a way of determining who is using the roads. Unless they have a mileage tax.
It’s coming.
Yes, it sucks.
But it’s coming.
Deal with it.
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