Cascadia Journal

It is happening again in the Oregon Legislature. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski wants more than anything to start a system of automobile taxation that is based upon the number of miles driven. The latest version of this idea is designed only for motorists in the Portland area, but it is a glimpse of what is to come.

In the current proposed legislation, we are developing a framework upon which future decisions will be made.  In other words, there really is no plan for taxing us by the mile right now, but the legislature is being asked to approve a plan to allow a by-the-mile tax just as soon as local governments decide they want to do it.  They are being asked to sign a blank check and fill in the blanks later.  This is no way for a government to raise funds for any purpose.

I agree that there is some merit in a plan that taxes motorists by the amount that they use the roads.  There is also merit in a plan that would charge more for using the roadways during busy times.  Our Oregon’s governor says that he is interested in getting away from a model where the gas tax pays for much of the highway maintenance.  That is where  the error in the plan comes in.

It is so simple to keep the gas tax in place.  In fact, it might be good to allow local governments to collect fuel taxes to support local maintenance projects.  It is so simple.  You drive more, you use more fuel, thus you pay more tax.

The gas tax has an extra added benefit.  The tax actually rewards fuel conservation and promotes less use of gasoline.  Thus it is good for the environment.  A vehicle that uses more fuel pays more in taxes for the same amount of driving than a more fuel efficient vehicle.  What could be easier?

The governor thinks it will be easier to place a device in every car that will measure how far that car has been driven, as well as where and when the vehicle has been driven.  Besides the fact that this all seems just a bit too Orwellian for my tastes, some government agency is going to be all of a sudden doing a lot of bookkeeping to track these expenses.  If there really is a compelling need to tax based upon mileage that the vehicle is driven, we might find that all vehicles are already equipped with a rather unobtrusive meter to track mileage.  We call it the odometer.  We could check it when we register our vehicles.

One concern of continuing reliance on the gas tax is the fact that, as we switch to fuel efficient or alternative fuel vehicles, we are going to collect less tax revenue to pay for highway maintenance.  After all, an electric or hybrid vehicle uses less gas, but should be expected to make some contribution to fund highways.  I do not disagree.  To make this work, we will need to raise the statre gas tax.

My “no tax increase” friends will now look away and say that I just want to see taxes raised again.  Actually, this is not entirely true.  I would propose that if total tax revenue goes down because of vehicles using less fuel, that we simply raise the fuel tax enough to offset this loss in revenue.  For example, we might know that we need X number of dollars per year to fund road maintenance.  Due to fuel efficiency, we collect 20% less in taxes.  It seems quite reasonable that we would increase the tax per gallon by 20% to make up for this shortfall.  Yes, the price per gallon goes up, but the total tax that the driver pays would stay the same.

Sadly, it looks like Kulongoski and his followers will continue to look for the complicated solution when the simple solution will be cheaper.