Democrats’ Plan Paves the Ground to Tax Everything that Moves
Biden’s $400,000 tax hike ‘red line’ would be completely paved over after they institute the “pilot program” for mileage tax.
It appears that the Democrats plan to tax essentially everything that moves, or at least they are paving the ground to do so.
There is a proposed pilot program for a mileage tax tucked away in the infrastructure bill.
The U.S. Senate passed President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill with bipartisan support from 19 Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Buried in the 2,700 page infrastructure package is a pilot program for a vehicle mileage tax.
A vehicle mileage tax, or vehicle miles traveled fee, would charge motorists a fee based on how many miles they drive. Simply put, if you drive a vehicle, you would pay money to the government for every mile you drive. The time period can vary, but is typically a vehicle miles travel fee is measured in a one year period. A vehicle mileage traveled fee can be used to raise revenue for transportation and infrastructure projects.
The infrastructure bill includes $125 million to fund pilot programs to test a national vehicle miles traveled fee.
- National pilot program: This includes $10 million each year from 2022 to 2026 for a national vehicles miles traveled fee pilot program.
- State and local pilot program: This includes $75 million provided from the federal government to regional, state and local transportation agencies. The breakdown is $15 million provided each year from 2022 to 2026.
Here is how the program would work….theoretically.
The language in the bill calls for the pilot to include people from all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. This includes drivers of both commercial and personal vehicles. All participants would volunteer for the pilot.
Participants would keep paying the gas tax, but would also start paying a per-mile user fee. Those rates would be established by the Department of the Treasury, and once collected, the revenue would go to the Highway Trust Fund. The government would then refund the costs for these participants.
“Not more than 60 days after the end of each calendar quarter in which a volunteer participant has participated in the pilot program,” the bill reads. “The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Transportation, shall estimate an amount of payment for each volunteer based on the vehicle miles submitted by the volunteer for the calendar quarter and issue such payment to such volunteer participant.”
Democrats are already explaining how this proposed mileage fee pilot program isn’t an issue (which means it is).
Fourth, there is no mileage tax in this bill. What you are hearing is about a study to figure out if such a fee would even be possible for issues like electric cars driving on our streets without paying the gas tax like the rest of us. It does not implement a new tax. (8/9)
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) August 7, 2021
What is the chance that the gas tax will be rescinded after the mileage tax is implemented? I would say somewhere between slim and infinitesimal.
And how would you get “volunteers” to participate? I would imagine using the same persuasion techniques now used to force people to get the COVID vaccine.
Even though no complex fee number has been determined, many Americans are getting nervous about how much such a tax could cost annually. The impact on lower-wage earners who drive long distances to their place of employment would be significant.
Biden’s $400,000 tax hike ‘red line’ would be wholly paved over.
The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure accord would institute a multiyear “national motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot” program that, without future intervention from the White House, could potentially violate one of President Joe Biden’s previously stated red lines.
Top White House officials emphatically stated for months that paying for the infrastructure investments by indexing gas taxes to inflation or instituting new electric vehicle mileage fees were hard red lines for the president on the grounds that they would raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 per year.
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Comments
This is a tax for people living outside of cities where there is mass transportation and work is closer to home. A tax to reduce urban flight and to increase Democrat’s influence that is based in cities.
I don’t think even that, Oracle. It’s just another tax, plain and simple.
It’s not a mileage tax.
It’s a Vehicle Convenience Fee!
I live in rural Nevada and I drive a LOT. Medical appointments, box stores, etc, I have to drive at least 45 miles one way. And I drive a lot for pleasure. If this goes into effect I will be pissed!
I have to go visit my elderly Mom every month to make sure things are done around her apartment and she’s dealing with her medical issues appropriately (she is one to claim she’s “OK” and “Fine” when she really isn’t). It’s a 300 mile trip, one way. And now democrats are telling me I have to pay a “mileage tax” every year to take care of my Mom? What a load of bullsh*t.
Driving for pleasure is so bourgeois! It is of no benefit to the collective great good!
You are correct, comrade! I shall immediately turn myself in for reeducation!
I’ll get slaughtered for this, but, here goes. There will eventually BE a mileage tax as electric vehicles become more common, Charging a tac at the “pump”, that is, charging stations, is an idea, but does not account for home chargers.
I have a Level 2 charger here at my bear-cave, and there is no surcharge on my bill for when I refill my Chrysler’s batteries. (Yes, your resident grizzly drives a PHEV. No gas for in-town, or at least very little, but I also can do road trips with the ICE. The acceleration ‘off the line’ is often a lot of fun.)
However, the system described in this article is just a path to double taxation, and everyone knows it.
They can mandate everyone buy an Apple iPhone (Roberts would rule this a tax) and the CDC could direct everyone have it installed in their skull (there is a climate emergency so CDC could direct it without any legislation) and track your every move for taxation purposes. Payment could auto-process via Apple Pay.
They can tax movement by walking at a lower rate than moving by vehicle. White people can be charged more because they are privileged and inherently racist. The unvaccinated can be electrically shocked and immobilized should they attempt to move more than three feet in any direction to keep them inside their social distancing safety bubble because we have a never-ending COVID crisis. Bezos can deliver electric shocks until you buy something he wants ou to buy from Amazon thereby stimulating (literally) consumption to keep the economy moving along. Walmart can deliver electric shocks until you walk into their stores. If you do not buy anything or at a too slow a rate, they can deliver electric shocks until you leave.
I think this is the plan..
Brave Robin, Those idea are dangerous and those A&&holes in D.C. would do it if they could
I will make one amendment to my post:
“Bezos can deliver electric shocks until you buy something he wants ou to buy from Amazon thereby stimulating (literally) consumption to keep the economy moving along..” should read:
“Bezos can deliver electric shocks until you buy something he wants you to buy from Amazon thereby stimulating (literally) consumption to keep the CHINESE economy moving along.”
Of course, screw the American economy, and you, too. But the “Big Guy” will get his cut, which is as sure as death and taxes.
FJB
Wait, another amendment!
To “The unvaccinated can be electrically shocked and immobilized should they attempt to move more than three feet in any direction to keep them inside their social distancing safety bubble because we have a never-ending COVID crisis.” add “and need to protect the vaccinated.”
‘There will be a mileage tax’. Maybe, maybe not. An easy and very simple alternative to a mileage tax is available. A flat fee for EV paid annually at registration renewal assessed v the average miles driven from combustion engines gathered from AAA or whatever reliable source.
Average mileage is x. Average fuel consumption to drive those miles is y. That equals z amount of fuel. Now apply the existing fuel tax to determine the amount of fuel tax foregone by EV. If a particular EV owner wants a precise measure they can low jack their vehicle.
If this is about fairness and ensuring that EV owners pay the user fee (fuel tax) for road maintenance then this proposal solves the issue. If instead it’s about monitoring individual driving habits then this proposal won’t be accepted.
They want control of your bank accounts. the UK has already floated making currency digital and restrictive to what the government will let you buy.
Participants would keep paying the gas tax, but would also start paying a per-mile user fee.
Why would they make ICE vehicle owners pay the mileage tax? Just make the EV owners pay the mileage tax, and ICE owners continue to pay the gas tax. That seems logical. Or, put an additional tax on the electricity used to charge the EVs.
Of course, they’ll end up putting a new tax on everything, just to make sure they abuse the maximum number of taxpayers, and don’t miss any opportunity to take their money. 🙄
“That seems logical.”
Let’s see, it’s a government program and you think there is any concern for logic?
Yeah, that was sarcasm. Guess I should have used the eye roll emoji there, too.
Not really. The whole reason for taxing gas in the first place was as a proxy for a mileage tax. With the technology of the time that made sense. Most cars got more or less a similar number of miles per gallon, so the more gas you used the more miles you were traveling. People with extensive off-road gas usage got a rebate to account for that. But once gas mileage started to differ dramatically this no longer made sense, and now with cars that get an infinite number of miles per gallon (because their miles driven is divided by zero) it makes no sense at all. So if it’s feasible to tax miles directly, the most logical thing is to do so and stop taxing gas.
But the sentence you quoted is very easily explained: There is no mileage tax at the moment. The point of the study is to figure out whether such a tax would even work. So if you volunteer to help with the study it doesn’t matter what sort of car you drive. You still pay the gas tax because that’s the real tax that actually goes to fix the roads. You also pay this new “tax” that doesn’t exist yet, but you get it automatically refunded. It’s like when I sometimes test a client’s payment system by making a dummy purchase, which the client then refunds.
A comprehensive explanation of what is going on here and activism tools to oppose it are available at the National Motorists Association website.
My sources tell me that as soon as the mileage tax is effected, it will be increased sixty percent overnight by a Biden metric conversion order. Kamala explained the math to Joe.
“Kamala explained the math to Joe.” . . . while Joe dribbled onto his bib.
According to Democrat Math from Pelosi, there is “Zero” increase because “it pays for itself!”
Whatever that means…
Temporary measures. Their real goal is to make travel OF ANY SORT cost prohibitive, so you will be forced to stay in your own little urban circle.
And just like any good tax, it won’t matter to the upper crust, since they will either find a way to skirt the tax, or just pay out anyhow because they’re loaded so pfffft.
Self-driving vehicles are also an interim step in this ultimate plan to trap people in urban centers, keeping the hoi polloi corralled and thus easier to control.
Everything, from useless scamdemic measures like “social distancing” and masks to vaxx mandates, to social media and social credit scores, to digital currencies, to self-driving cars and mileage taxes, is designed to CONTROL YOU.
They’ve already gone most of the way there with mask mandates on planes and trains, and vax mandates on planes (sure to be extended to passenger trains). The only way many people will want to travel under this regime is by automobile.
Mitch McConnell serves his masters in the Democrat party once again.
Martin O’Malley comes to mind.
Please pardon me, but I’m confused
The pilot program pays the volunteers per mile?
“… shall estimate an amount of payment for each volunteer based on the vehicle miles submitted by the volunteer for the calendar quarter and issue such payment to such volunteer participant.””
Not ‘issue a bill” but ‘issue a payment’.
So the program issues payment to the volunteers?
Pehaps a way to entice volunteers – but, if you overreport miles simply to get $$, then the govt is likely to hammer you for underreporting miles when YOU start paying? Guilty until proven innocent in the tax law – which is impossible.
One more step along a slippery slope of the USG monitoring EVERYTHING you do. Why did your mileage increase/decrease so much last month/week? Mileage driven on State roads v. on Federal roads?
and so on and so forth……………………………….
Oldschool Sends
I read that as “refund” whatever they had to pay, and maybe they get something in addition. That way you might find volunteers as well as ensuring that whatever the heck the “study” is going to measure will not show what will happen if the taxpayer has to actually foot the bill. Rendering it useless for the purported purpose but very useful in showing how this “tax” will have no unwanted side-effects whatsoever.
No, it isn’t paying the volunteers, it’s just refunding them what they paid. The point is that they’re testing the system by actually paying this “tax” even though it doesn’t exist, so each quarter the government estimates how much they paid that quarter and sends them a check.
“Democrats’ Plan Paves the Ground to Tax Everything that Moves…”
and everything else? Tax that too!
Only the vile, stupid, narcissistic and totalitarian Dhimmi-crats would contrive a taxation plan so manifestly Orwellian as to charge the peasant rabble a tax levied upon their movement around the country.
I don’t think even Stalin or Mao proposed something so brazenly idiotic.
The problem with all of this is nobody really knows how it will turn out, but it will look more like Frankenstein than Cinderalla.
Looks like Senator Cassidy’s tweets are both lies……. imagine that, a politician knowing and willfully lying. That hardly ever happens. /s
The Beatles “Tax Man” song is proving prophetic.
I have a better idea for a tax, based on your weight. The average person exhales (per google) 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day, obviously a Climate Change no-no. Larger people exhale more. So, let’s tax you on how much you weigh. $1 per pound per year on 330 million people, weighing an average 150 pounds would generate $500 billion over ten years. This is also socially desirable, as it would financially encourage weight loss. That would be a good idea for most people and save health care dollars as well.
Last I checked, we have State-issued license plates, not national license plates.
How would it be done to Constitutional?
Well, since some vehicles cross state lines it is obviously something the Commerce Clause would cover.
Might I add that that clause’s potential has not been properly explored yet, given Merriam-Webster’s ( and other dictionaries’) definitions?
It occurs to me that I probably should point out for possible authoritarians reading this comment constitutes what could be called sarcasm.
(If you drive a car, car)
I’ll tax the street
(If you try to sit, sit)
I’ll tax your seat
(If you get too cold, cold)
I’ll tax the heat
(If you take a walk, walk)
I’ll tax your feet
Eff dementia Joe,his Marxist minions and the worthless RINOS.
All part of the DemoKKKRATS (CCP) Master Plan, folks. Make it impossible to drive anything but a “sacred” EV or ride mass transit. Make it impractical to live outside of a city where your movements can be more easily monitored and controlled and destroying the “racist” suburbs. Such a massive “Wealth Redistribution” plan is unprecedented in American History. This is nothing but blatant Communism that has failed every time it’s been tried. It’s 2A time folks. American Revolution 2.0 if you will. Time to clean out that rat’s nest called Washington, DC once and for all.
This plan is also another way to thin the ranks of older cars on the road. My 1984 car has no electronics (radio excepted). There is no way to track my mileage other than the analog odometer in my dash. That is the way the car was made and that is the way the car will remain. I will not alter my car as to allow anyone to track where I am, how far I traveled to get there, and how long it took.
Of course my cell phone could reveal all this data with a click of keyboard but I could leave it at home!
It’s all about control, the more the government controls the better off we are right?
@jb4
not even funny – too realistic