Comments on: HB___/SB___ – 2009 Maryland General Assembly http://monoblogue.us/2008/12/17/hb___sb___-2009-maryland-general-assembly/ News and views from Maryland's Eastern Shore since 2005, and home site of the Liberty Features syndicated columnist. Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:04:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Marc http://monoblogue.us/2008/12/17/hb___sb___-2009-maryland-general-assembly/comment-page-1/#comment-97463 Marc Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:38:39 +0000 http://monoblogue.us/?p=2930#comment-97463 I wouldn't really be opposed to this tax if the money were used to fund highway improvement and if it didn't involve such intrusive government monitoring of our driving (which, besides the privacy concerns, necessitates a large bureaucracy). Those who use the roads should pay for them, which is the rationale behind the gas tax. With a portion of the gas tax money being used for transit programs (which can sometimes be justified if they reduce the usage on roads) and with hybrid cars using less gas and thus contributing less to the transportation trust fund (even though their road usage is the same as other cars), there are problems with the current system. If I had my way, we'd switch to a system of toll roads (without using the EZ-Pass, which lets government monitor your movement), but that would never happen. I'm not sure what the answer is, but taxing drivers based on how many miles they drive in order to fund road construction is a good idea. How to go about doing it is another matter entirely. I don't think the tax idea you talk about above is a good way, but it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I wouldn’t really be opposed to this tax if the money were used to fund highway improvement and if it didn’t involve such intrusive government monitoring of our driving (which, besides the privacy concerns, necessitates a large bureaucracy). Those who use the roads should pay for them, which is the rationale behind the gas tax. With a portion of the gas tax money being used for transit programs (which can sometimes be justified if they reduce the usage on roads) and with hybrid cars using less gas and thus contributing less to the transportation trust fund (even though their road usage is the same as other cars), there are problems with the current system. If I had my way, we’d switch to a system of toll roads (without using the EZ-Pass, which lets government monitor your movement), but that would never happen.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but taxing drivers based on how many miles they drive in order to fund road construction is a good idea. How to go about doing it is another matter entirely. I don’t think the tax idea you talk about above is a good way, but it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

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