I’ve written in the past about the drawbacks of the motor-fuels tax — which was a market-friendly innovation a hundred years ago, facilitating the growth of a modern, mostly private transportation system based on automobility. In theory, now that the technology is so much advanced, we should be able to replace the gas tax, a proxy for miles traveled on the roadways, with a direct miles-per-traveled user fee. With GPS data and sharing of trip data across state lines, this would essentially be a tolling system that isn’t confined solely to certain unlimited-access highways.
But you can count on the political class to take this promising idea and turn it into a monstrosity, as evidenced by this Charlotte Observer piece. If North Carolina proposes to supplement the existing gas tax with a VMT tax, adjusted for fuel efficiency and double-counting miles traveled in other states, count me out. That’s just another way to raise the gas tax. The real need is to replace it, on a revenue-neutral basis at first but recognizing that over time a miles-used charge will grow apace with the needs of the road network, as is not the case with the current gas tax.
