Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 18, 2024 • 03:11 PM

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California Considers Voluntary Per-Mile Tax Program on Motorists Print
By Ashton Ellis
Thursday, May 08 2014
The plunge in revenue projections is so dire officials are attempting to drop taxing gas in favor of taxing people for every mile they drive.

California has long prided itself on being a leader in promoting greater fuel efficiency in automobiles. The Golden State incentivized sales of hybrid and electric cars by allowing single-occupant use of its carpool lanes to drivers of low- and zero-emission vehicles. The “California Global Warming Solutions Act” (i.e. AB 32) seeks to fight worldwide climate change by imposing strict regulations and fees on state-based consumers of fossil fuels.

But after decades of demanding unending increases in fuel efficiency, “green” states like California are realizing that motorists who use less gas-per-mile also pay less in gas taxes. The plunge in revenue projections is so dire officials are attempting to drop taxing gas in favor of taxing people for every mile they drive.

“State and local gas-tax revenue has declined every year since 2004, falling 7 percent to $37.9 billion in 2010,” reports the website The Truth About Cars. Progressively higher federal fuel standards have resulted in a nationwide vehicle fleet that is much more efficient than its predecessors. In May of 2007, “all cars sold had an average CAFÉ rating of 30 MPG.”

Typical of the move toward a mileage-based-fee (MBF) is California’s Senate Bill 1077. If passed, the proposal would empower the California Transportation Agency (CalTrans) to create a pilot program to test the viability of taxing miles driven rather than gas purchased. At a page-and-a-half, the bill is short on details other than listing a start and end date – January 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 – and requiring that CalTrans study how to limit the program’s costs and minimize the encroachments on privacy that seem almost inevitable to occur.

Critics have seized on two controversial aspects of SB 1077.

The first is the voluntary nature of the pilot program. A similar test in Oregon netted only 50 volunteers, most of whom were state transportation officials and elected lawmakers. Oregon’s participants were allowed to either use a global positioning system (GPS) or self-report their number of miles driven. Oregon’s proposed MBF is 1.56 cents per mile, with participants getting a credit to offset their gas tax.

Oregon’s sample suffers from at least two problems that make any results meaningless. The first is selection bias since the kind of people who opt-in to a voluntary tax are those most likely to support it becoming law – as evidenced by the high number of public officials who volunteered for the study. There’s also concern that the limited participation rate isn’t big and diverse enough to give planners an accurate picture of what a statewide program would yield. If the voluntary program required by California’s SB 1077 is similarly deficient, a lot of money and time will be wasted.

The second criticism of SB 1077 is its likelihood to infringe on privacy rights currently enjoyed by California motorists. By its terms, the bill mandates CalTrans to study various ways to collect the data necessary to track every mile driven by each vehicle in California. Allowing drivers to self-report their mileage seems like an invitation to commit fraud, while installing a GPS device in every automobile removes that possibility.

But the specter of a government-owned GPS in every vehicle raises questions about who gets access to the information. Will law enforcement be able to track motorists in real time? Will other government agencies be able get personal data on drivers? Will the government give non-government groups the information in exchange for help mining the wealth of data captured by millions of GPS monitors?

Blowback against SB 1077 has been so swift and fierce that its author has published a “Frequently Asked Questions” page on his official website. In it, he emphatically claims that “This bill DOES NOT:

• Allow California Transportation Agency to force anyone to participate in the pilot program
• Allow California Transportation Agency to charge a fee or a tax
• Have anything to do with raising taxes on anyone.”

While the first two bullet points are technically true, the third isn’t even close. The entire purpose of SB 1077 is to explore ways to increase the tax revenue flowing into Sacramento. Until politicians can admit that, simply calling a new tax a fee won’t be enough to persuade voters.

Notable Quote   
 
"It's a rematch.President Biden and former President Trump each hit a key marker last week, clinching enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee of their respective party.The outcome of the general election will come down to a handful of states, as usual.The map maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ lists seven contests as toss-ups."Read the entire article here.…[more]
 
 
— Niall Stanage, The Hill
 
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