Yes, I can see the Maryland General Assembly jumping in line right behind North Carolina on this – in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if this were pre-filed. From Michelle Malkin:
First, they hand us our Obama-approved tire gauges.
Next, they police our odometers. Fresh from North Carolina, here’s the latest Nanny State proposal: Monitoring our odometers and taxing us accordingly.
She goes on to detail a Charlotte Observer story detailing the VMT tax, which the state’s 21st Century Transportation Committee suggested could kick in at 1/4 cent per mile, with the first 2,000 miles driven free. Thus, the “average” 12,000 mile per year driver could see a $25 tax bill annually.
More sinister is this passage from the Observer story by Steve Harrison:
If the “road-use tax” is implemented, it would at first be simple – with the state checking your odometer annually and taxing you based on how many miles you have driven. But transportation experts say new GPS technology could allow the state to charge people different rates based on when and where they drive, in an attempt to manage congestion.
Would this be a revenue builder? Of course, and it would hit rural and far-suburban areas particularly hard as workers who live in those areas and commute for an hour or more daily to work naturally rack up a lot more mileage than the average person. The same goes for those in particularly car-dependent professions like sales. Someone who drives 40,000 miles a year for those reasons could be stuck with a $95 tax bill – perhaps that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when have usage taxes ever decreased after adoption?
I also see a second, more hidden agenda with this idea, though, and it has to do with so-called “Smart Growth” policies – especially if rates become flexible based on when and where one drives. Let’s say you’re one of those who commutes from Easton to Annapolis, which is a 42-mile commute and takes about an hour each way, disregarding any tie-ups on the Bay Bridge. Someplace along the line with this GPS technology experts say is already in place, the state could decide to raise the tax to 2 cents per mile between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and only in particular urban regions. If you have that sort of commute, you’d likely drive about 20,000 miles a year and that original $45 tax becomes $336 annually. Throw in the daily Bay Bridge toll and this practice could make it less economically viable to work on the Western Shore while enjoying the lifestyle of the Eastern Shore.
The goal of “smart growth” advocates is to push people out of their cars, either by bringing them back closer to the urban core, by encouraging mass transit, or both. And as rural areas wither and die, it becomes possible on some far-off day to connect vast “green” corridors for wildlife where human intervention is discouraged.
Given that the state of Maryland has a chronic budget deficit, a thirst for spending more money, a Governor who promised to “invest in mass transit options to allow more Marylanders to use light rail, buses and Metro rails as an alternative to cars” as well as “ensure Maryland grows in smarter ways that depend less upon new highways and increased traffic”, and a environmentalist lobby who’s fought tooth and nail against highway improvements such as the Inter-County Connector, it’s almost certain that we’ll need to stand against this idea here in what used to be the Free State come January. That’s why I titled the piece as I did because I can see this new tax coming a mile away.