The Congressional Budget Office seems enthusiastic about the idea of taxing us for our total vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The more you drive, the more you pay. That would require metering, which should worry any sane person:
CBO did acknowledge that privacy concerns may be a hurdle to implementing a VMT tax because electronic tracking of miles driven might provide too much personal information to the government. However, CBO noted that some have proposed restricting the information that would be transmitted to the government.
Well, that's not very reassuring. The CBO "acknowledged" that privacy concerns "may be a hurdle." But "some" have proposed "restricting" the information transmitted to the government. Not everyone who is proposing this, mind you, just some. The reality is that a device installed in a car to record the number of miles driven can record the places driven to. Let's have a show of hands from those who think the government can be trusted to get only the infrormation it says it will get and never misuse it.
As for the VMT tax itself, most of the arguments I've seen against it center on its weaknesses when compared with the gas tax. The gas tax, for example, already gets the most money from those who drive the most, and it does it without raising any privacy concerns at all. But if you read this story very carefully, you realize they aren't actually thinking about the VMT as a replacement to the gas tax but as a supplement to it. When these people start talking about "revenue enhancement," don't blink or you'll miss something.
