Every move you make, Every step you take
Members of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments are scheduled to vote on Thursday on whether or not to authorize a study of the proposal. Under the plan, drivers would have to install trackers in their vehicle and officials would tax drivers for every mile they travel.
“Officials”
Who will Track ‘n’ Tax you.
But don’t worry:
“We’re not interested in where they go. We’re only interested in the amount they travel,” said [Randy Rentschler with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission ]. “But for some folks, that’s a distinction without a difference. Anytime you talk about getting information from people, whenever that conversation comes up, it’s another hurdle you have to overcome.”
You’re “not interested” in where people travel. So if I drive, say, to Idaho, or Tahoe, or Shasta or LA, you’re gonna tax my mileage for roads in the SF Bay Area? Is that what you’re saying?
Oh, and what happened to the money you already tax me at the gas pump? Which was said to be for road maintenance and “transportation projects”?
A 10-cent-a-gallon increase in the Bay Area could generate an estimated $300 million a year or more to pay for transportation-related projects. Although the money could be used for roads, the emphasis probably would be on public transit and efforts to reduce auto pollution.
“People will kill their puppies to stop global warming these days,” said Dave Snyder [transportation policy director at the San Francisco Policy and Urban Planning Association, a think tank.
...an opinion poll found scant support for a 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax.
"We don't know the reason there is so much hesitancy toward a gas tax,"
Yeah. That's a real puzzler, there...
So now they're pondering making it a "fee" which only requires a simple majority... For Global Warming Climate Change, donchanoooo. [it's been unusually cool here these last few summers. lousy tomato-growing weather]
Sales tax … is levied on both the gasoline and on the federal and state excise taxes, resulting in a form of “double taxation”. The sales tax is included in the metered price at the pump. The California excise tax on gasoline as of mid-2012 is 36 cents per gallon for motor fuel plus a 2.25% sales and use tax [plus a "prepaid sales tax of 7 cents]*, 10 cents per gallon for diesel plus a 9.42% sales and use tax [plus a 29 cent "prepaid sales tax]*
So what’d ya do with all that money, eh? Now you “need” more?!?
*Although all the details are still being worked out, the so-called Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax could cost up to a dime per mile and also be based on the time of day a driver is traveling on the roads.
Transit officials said this is all part of a long-term transportation and housing effort called Plan Bay Area
If you want a behavior to decrease, Tax It.
Plan Bay Area:
Yeah, it’s a target… But it’s GREEN, so it’s ok.
1. Reduce per-capita carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light-duty trucks by 7 percent by 2020 and by 15 percent by 2035,
So instead of generating ideas like supporting tax cuts for LNG stations and conversions, or any of a bunch of fairly low-cost other approaches to “reducing carbon dioxide,” they decide that decreasing the mobility of The People and increasing the cost of their Goods and Services is The Right Thing to do.
and
2. House by 2035 100 percent of the region’s projected 25-year growth by income level, without displacing current low-income residents.
The remaining eight targets reflect voluntary goals regarding healthy and safe communities, open space and agricultural preservation, equitable access, economic vitality and transportation system effectiveness.
Where other people plan where we will be allowed to live, how “healthy and safe” we will be required to be [see England's "Health and Safety" laws], what we will be allowed to do and how we will [not] be allowed to get around: for Teh Climate and teh Sustainability. And “Our Own Good.” Oh, and Teh Equity.
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*Disclaimer: Some Public Planning is A Good Thing. Not putting stock yards next to The Shopping District is a Good Idea. But it is just too tempting a mechanism for the social engineers to take over and run every aspect of our lives via unelected and unaccountable Boards making “regulations and penalties” which have the force of Law without the accountability to The People of elected Law makers.
eg: in some counties it is illegal to have a non-water toilet. [composting/incinerating, etc.] Yes. The Law Regulations force the citizenry to continue pooping into perfectly good — and increasingly scarce — drinking water. Because otherwise people would be able to build homes in areas They don’t want us to live in. For some reason. Some of those areas having been lived in for 100 years.
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16 Comments!
Ve haff vays uff makink you pay!
The Green Priests© are running a racket.
People will kill their puppies to stop global warming these days,” said Dave Snyder, transportation policy director…
Truth be told:
People will kill their
puppiestransportation policy director to stop global warming talk these days,” saidDave Snydera citizen …Segregation?
With a grandfather clause,
I wonder if they have plans to assist those “current low-income residents” when their new rich neighbors bring with them these little overpriced but feely goodie “organic, fair trade, green, you forgot your bag we’ll sale you one for 5 bucks” stores.
I saw V,D, Hanson posting somewhere that they have a referendum coming up on the next ballot to destroy a dam that provides a big part of their drinking water so the river can ‘run free and find its own path’. Very enlightened citizens you all have there and 10 cents a mile tax is way too small for them. I’d set it at 5.00 per mile plus 2.00 per passenger other than the driver. Then the commissars could preside over their wet dream of a barren unpopulated nature park since anyone with any sense would leave.
San Franfreakshow- weenies blindly attempt to impose a *pus-filled boil* on Moonbeam`s *Left Buttock* (pun intended) State Law, specifically addressing “Glow Ball Worming”! {…I enclose here, information regarding global warming for perspective: Californicateya is the ONLY State of our *57 States* that passed a draconian cap & trade Law. For over a year, now, the global warming scam has and is falling apart all over the entire fucking BLUE MARBLE aka Planet Earth! Good Science has disproved the Bad Science data 100 fucking %!!!!!!!…}
Accordingly, Captain Moonbeam has decided that Californicateya`s tiny portion of the Blue Marble`s air space will, somehow(?), save ALL planet air, thanks to HIS brilliance, No?
Soooo, is SFran motive as identified by “Sherlock Claire” , a local enhancement of Moonbeam`s Bril——————–or———————An easily-seen way to rip all of us off, by regularly removing the contents of our purses and wallets????
TRUE or FALSE: You have 1.69 seconds to mark your answer….[...if you are totally *unaware* of this entire issue, jist mark TRUE, m-kaye...]
Eagles and bats are the preferred victims.
It’s mighty easy to jam a GPS signal.
Just sayin’…
Can’t wait until Frisco is a ghost town.
Of course they’re going to have to apply this to citizens of the surrounding cities in case they might wander into San Francisco sometime in their lives.
Sooo glad son, d-i-l and grandson moved out of SFO. All the way to Oakland.
Frisco – the Official City of Loons. (No offense meant to real Canadian loons.)
Unless SF is more conservative than I thought, there’s a tax (per gallon) on gasoline; and gasoline is consumed by the mile. So if you’re taxed on gasoline, you’re already taxed per mile.
“People will kill their puppies to stop ….”
Quick! Somebody call PETA!
Our worshipful Governor has yet another tax increase on the November ballot. If it doesn’t pass, he assures us that all our puppies (and kitteh) will surely die; teachers, policemen, firemen and doctors will have to be let go; there will be nobody left in the State do do anything except union workers.
But a poll not too far back found that people said, “if that stupid high-speed rail passes, we won’t vote a tax increase”.
That puts him between a rock and a hard place – the natural habitat of the California weasel (soon to be the Official State Vermin).
I honestly think that if public planning ever actually accomplishes “A Good,” it’s by accident.
This ain’t just SF — it’s the nine[9] bay area counties: Alameda · Contra Costa · Marin · Napa · San Francisco · San Mateo · Santa Clara · Solano · Sonoma
With features like “Growing Smarter Together Awards”
*running cupcakes*
Is there a way to tax voter fraud?
Do y’all SEE it?
“We’re not interested in where they go. We’re only interested in the amount they travel,” said Rentschler. “But for some folks, that’s a distinction without a difference. Anytime you talk about getting information from people, whenever that conversation comes up, it’s another hurdle you have to overcome.”
First of all, this character is well named: “wRentschler”, because he is so obviously a hopeless tool.
But read his words carefully again…
Do you see the mindset at work?
“….it another hurdle you have to overcome.”
The right or the wrong of the issue, for him, don’t even enter into it; it is just another obstacle to social control to be beaten down.
“But for some folks, that’s a distinction without a difference.”
Because it is…
But see how, by implication, it’s THOSE people who are the ones with a problem.
Also note the inherent mendacity in the opening sentence: “We are not interested in where they go.”
I have to ask; how are you going to know how far I have gone, if you don’t know where I started from or where I ended up? Whether or not you store that knowledge is NOT the point. The Point is that you CAN, if you so choose; forcing me to operate on the assumption that you WILL.
The bottom line is that where I go, when I go there and how long I stay, is NOT the business of governmental entity.
The classic argument, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” may be raised. I reject it utterly, for it is based on the assumption that I have to justify my movements and actions to YOU.
Guess what? I DON’T!
Lucius: “I have to ask; how are you going to know how far I have gone, if you don’t know where I started from or where I ended up?”
Simple. GPS tracks miles driven. It also tracks where you are (and were), which is super-useful for monitoring road usage – we’ll know which roads need more repair.
Clearly, all these are great and wonderful things.
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”
I reject that, too. If anyone were actually dim enough to try that one on me, I’d answer, “Fair enough. So let’s just say that next Sunday morning, while you’re out a church, or the beach, or whatever, we’ll just send over our lads from Security to your house and have a little look-around. Don’t worry, we’ll put everything back almost exactly as we find it.
Don’t worry about the key under the mat. We know about that. And even if it’s not there, we’ll be able to get in quite easily. We know all your passwords, too.”
“The Point is that you CAN….”
Anyone who’s ever worked on a database system knows that sooner (rather than later), they will want to collect just one more bit of data.
And terabyte drives are getting cheaper all the time.
GPS also tracks speed (I have an old Garmin – it does all those things). Which is nice, because then we can send you a speeding ticket without having to make a traffic stop.
The bottom line rebuttal to his argument is this: gas taxes tell you how many miles people travel.
ZZMike (15): bravo & thanks on your entire post, with the last line as the best. It is waxing hyperbolic…
[which of course I never do :-p ]
…but if this post were a symphony (or at lest a movement), then this would be the crescendo (or whatever those things are called).