States consider fees for hybrids to recoup lost gasoline taxes
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina is joining a growing number of states exploring new fees for hybrid and electric car owners to help make up for revenue those drivers aren’t paying in gas taxes on their fuel-efficient vehicles.
Fuel Fix » States consider fees for hybrids to recoup lost gasoline taxes
h/t to NavarreAggie
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
How much will they tax you for riding your bicycle? I’m sure that’s next!
Virginia was proposing $100 – but settled on a $65. Which negates the fuel tax savings in most cases.
The politicians think it unfair that we get to keep and use even part of the money we earned by honest work and trade. We are supposed to get along on what they allow us to keep and be grateful to them that they permit us to exist and work for them and their goals. Ultimately, we are to exist and function by their permission. To exist and function by permission is to be a slave.
Why do we accept this as the way it should be?
Apparently freedom, liberty, respect for individual rights, and a hands off government is for kooks and extremists. It is expected that more reasonable people will be happy being a slave and letting others plan their existence. Count me as a kook and an extremist. I am no man’s slave nor is any man mine. The degree that I cooperate with the politicians is the degree they are willing to put a gun at my head to force me. Even then, I produce less than I would or could if left free.
The government giveth, and the government taketh away. Amen.
@Lionell: Completely agree with your sentiment. However, we are indeed all slaves to the government, much as we’d prefer to think we are no man’s slave. As you know, every year, right up to Tax Freedom Day, we work for the State, the fruits of our labour taken from us by force, with the threat of imprisonment if we do not comply. That is slavery, however you slice and dice it.
No, it is a protection racket and extortion by a gang of thugs. They do it under color of law but it is an absolute abuse of the powers we the people granted to our servant: the government. I don’t give a damn if the supreme court says otherwise. A plain reading of the text of the constitution says their so called laws are not valid. To a man, they are obliged to protect and defend the constitution.
What both republicans and democrats have done is shred the constitution to beyond recognition. Therefor our so called government is not legitimate. It has lost all moral right to demand compliance. The ONLY reason one need obey their commands is because of their use of force of arms. They can force my body or they can kill me but they can’t force my mind.
He who is free, never submits. He who submits, was never free. Stay free!
“States consider fees for hybrids to recoup lost gasoline taxes”
Shoe, meet foot.
Thing is, only a small fraction of the cost of a gallon of gas goes to the oil company, and the gas station owner. It is so heavily padded by taxing by leftist politicians both Fed and local that the price is unrecognizable. A gas pump is a simple spigot placed directly into the consumer environment. It is a catheter installed into the public body.
The leftists politicians can continually adjust these taxes invisibly and all the while point fingers at big oil, and big auto, and consumers using internal combustion engines. What a huge scam.
Now other politicians want to aim a few taxes back at those same ( mostly ) leftists who are dodging the very taxes they allowed and helped create on gasoline. I say hit them even harder. Pull all those electric subsidies for starters.
If they pulled the subsidies, there would be no need to tack on an extra fee. No one would buy the stupid things to begin with.
Gee, nobody saw THAT coming, did they?
The irony – so creamy and delicious.
But: Streets and roads and bridges, etc, have to be paid for somehow, and while a Pious, er, Prius may use 50% less fuel than a comparably sized conventional car, it probably puts the same amount of wear & tear on the roads. We can argue all day about whether gov’t should be involved in transportation at all, and whether the marketplace could do it for less if allowed to operate free from government-induced distortions (and as a Libertarian-leaning grouchy centrist, I favor market solutions), but the fact remains that whatever form transportation infrastructure takes, it has to get paid for somehow.
Still, high entertainment to see politicos handing out tax break incentives with one hand while grasping for new fees with the other.
Actually, it’s a fun way to disconcert the politically correct by saying that electric vehicle owners are freeloading off the rest of us by not paying their share of road taxes through gasoline purchases. And it’s true!