Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
It hurts people who drive a lot. It hurts them more if they drive fuel-inefficient cars. Cigarette taxes hurt people who smoke. Alcohol taxes hurt people who drink. And in every case, they hurt more for people less able to afford them because they're poor. (BTW, I'd be interested in a study of how much poor vs. rich drive. I'd guess that for every maid who has to drive all the way across houston, there's a rich real estate agent who does the same).
If you're really concerned about regressivity, then make it (more) income neutral, and increase by a few thousand bucks the standard deduction. Everybody pays $100 less in income taxes, and an average of $100 more in gas tax.
Besides, how much are we talking here? If you drive 15k a year (a fair amount), that's 500-750 gallons of gas, for anything but a really fuel inefficient car (tough luck to you). So even a dollar per gallon is not a huge chunk.
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Oh yay, somebody talkin my language. To add to this, I'll note that I am very much in favor of a national mileage tax on all vehicles, weighted by, ahem, the weight of the vehicle.
And yup, its the kind of unfunded mandate I'd love to impose on the state motor vehicle departments.
The result would be more fair than the "personal property" tax that *some* silly states have.
Most important, you could fairly recoup the cost of damaged roads along with some of the cost of air pollution.
I'd be even more in favor of national toll roads (not enough traffic? no repairs), but this would seem to impose additional damage on the environment with all the starting and stopping.
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