Dave Cutter

The taxes won't stop increasing until no income, prosperity, or wealth is in private hands. Those who seek power have no limits as to how much power... would be enough.

Lil Bear

I think step one is elect representatives that spend responsibly, or is this project privately funded? I am all for raising the gas tax, and raising it a lot. Short term, it will increase revenue for roads. Long term, it will incentivise people to be more fuel efficient as well as walk and bike more, which will cut down on a major source of air pollution, reduce maintenance needed on roads, and indirectly reduce health care costs. A per-mile tax will just make the government spend more money, not use less.

enigmaT120

Highly efficient vehicles like my Insight (60 mpg) still use gas. Prius are very common in Oregon and usually get somewhere in the high 40s, I think. They pay the gas tax. So raise the gas tax. It's regressive like a tax on tobacco, but actually gets used for something relating to the item being taxed. Right now there are very few electric vehicles, but I realize some day there may be enough that we need to figure out a way to get more tax from their owners too. I would prefer a way is found that doesn't require tracking devices in private vehicles, costing almost half as much as the tax they collect. Raising registration fees is one idea.

Or. I saw an old dual sport BMW, an R100GSPD motorcycle, with the sticker "Paved roads: another example of wasted tax dollars."

In my county we approved a property tax levy to keep the roads maintained, and they are doing a good job. It's pretty obvious when you leave our county as the road surface is generally worse in other counties. And it certainly makes clear that vehicles that don't use gas (like my Fargo) can also use the roads.

KBentley57

@Lil BearThere is no such thing as an elected representative that spends responsibly - it's a myth that people idealize. This is by definition, because of people's varying definitions of 'responsibly'.

Roody

Wrong. Actually, taxes are lower now than ever. Also, in the USA we have the lowest taxes in the world. I see no signs of them ever going up. They will absolutely let the roads crumble before they raise taxes around here.

Roody

That myth sure gets a lot of traction. Around here, the politicians refuse to raise taxes for anything. They will let the state go to hell rather than raise one more nickel by taxes. Is it any different where you live? When is the last time your tax rates were raised? Mine have not been raised for years.

KBentley57

My point was that no matter what you think 'spending responsibly' means, someone else will be against it. There will never be a consensus that someone has spent responsibly. Also, Taxes need not be raised to spend irresponsibly. A person can spend $1, $100, or $10000 of someone else's money poorly, regardless of income at the moment.

loky1179

fify

Roody

Well, as I posted earlier, if you're trying to accomplish two things with a single tax, your outcome will probably be a mixed blessing.

Like when you're using one tax both to raise highway revenues and to modify driving behavior. If you succeed at the second, you will have to fail at the first.

I see this as a bit of a dilemma. Do you?

CliffordK

As far as the fuel efficient vehicles... lower taxes is a way to encourage their use.
Raise the gas taxes to discourage driving inefficient vehicles. Perhaps make credits for business owners with legitimate use of heavy vehicles easier (although I think it can be deducted from income taxes).

Plug-ins are a bit of a problem, but their numbers are still low.

Oregon ranks in the top 5 states for renewable energy production (with a wide margin to #6 ), largely due to Columbia River hydroelectric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ewable_sources

It could probably be improved somewhat, although dams have lost some popularity in recent decades.

So, EVs do make some sense for both efficiency, as well as cleanliness. So there is no reason not to encourage their use through favorable taxes.

Eventually, if the state chooses to, they could simply meter the KWH for the plug-in cars. If metered at the vehicle, it could be easy enough to track, even with multiple charging sources. Do the new EVs track lifetime charging? Perhaps work with the major manufactures to get lifetime charge tracking like odometers.

General government inefficiency is a problem. Everything the government from Local to State to Federal touches seems to spend the maximum amount of money available, and always wanting more. There is no incentive to be under budget. And, I've been around government offices that always go on a spending spree whenever they are under budget at the end of the fiscal year (so nobody realizes they could do with less).

dagray

I do not expect roads to be fixed for free; however, I do not support any new taxes or tax increases. What I do support are many programs being entirely defunded and to take the money from those programs and put the money back into the budget, or at the very least for the OR state government to stick to and come in at or under their current budget.

Lottery money that was earmarked for programs didn't go to those programs, taxes aren't being allocated to the funds they were supposed to go to, and funds that were never supposed to be part of the general fund now are.

I can't support paying our congress the wages they get for the lack of work they put in per year, I can't abide by Oregon's "tax the rich" schemes that have passed the Oregon legislature and even been voted on by those west of the Cascade Mountains.

Don't get me wrong I pay fuel tax for two vehicles twice a week and for two other vehicles when they get used, I also pay registration fees (taxes) on three vehicles.

Dave

Dave Cutter

Oh.... now I see it. Your from "Lansing".

CliffordK

There should be two phases in roads...

Infrastructure building.
Infrastructure maintenance.

Most of the road infrastructure in the state has been built years ago, and now just needs to be maintained which should be much cheaper, unless someone drops the ball, and stops doing maintenance for a few decades, then realizes that everything needs major upgrades. We're not at that point yet.

The biggest problem is in cities like Portland that just has too much traffic, and perhaps more effort needs to be made to reduce traffic rather than extremely expensive projects to build new infrastructure.

Yes, Portland has half the population of the rest of the state... so they should get a good chunk of the tax revenue. Still, taking 6 lane roads and making 8 or 10 lane roads is very expensive.

I suppose another issue is earthquakes. The risk has probably been ignored in the past since the last major earthquake in the northwest was before white settlers came to Oregon. Now there are predictions that an earthquake to put the California quakes to shame may occur... sometime. So there is rebuilding of old bridges.

Fortunately salt usage is minimized in inland Oregon.

Roody

And you're from "my recliner". So what?

Dave Cutter

Isn't Michigan the American Greece? With ever increasing taxes that no one actually pays. I actually pay taxes... and yes they continue to increase in dollars and percentage of earning and always have. New tax structure plans.... always just mean more taxes. It's intellectually dishonest to pretend differently.

Lil Bear

Read post #27 . Short term, more money to fix roads. Long term, less money needed to fix roads, and people. win/win I can write pages about this, but was trying to keep my answer simple. We're getting off topic... that being our thoughts on a tax based on road usage. I think it's a bad idea, and testing it was a waste of taxpayers' money. Another reason I believe the highest paid, most vetted, and most transparent people in government should be the government auditors. But... that's a topic for another thread (maybe another forum!). Come to my house, bring bourbon, and I'll impart all my knowledge upon you. We even have a guest room... this will take more than one day! Oh, and no worries - I have a bike you can use when you're here.

smasha

and... it moves away from a "pollution tax" towards a "road tax", which encourages people to hate cyclists for "not paying their fair share".

never-mind that cycling tends to be net cash-flow-positive for govt, while cars, no matter how much they're taxed, ALWAYS require subsidies from external sources.

this type of tax may be necessary for motor vehicles that don't rely on internal combustion, but there are perception problems when drivers pay to use the roads, as such.

as fuel efficiency improves, increasing gas-taxes makes perfect sense.

FWIW, here in NZ gasoline (aka petrol) and LPG are taxed at the pump, but diesel is not. if you drive a diesel powered vehicle, you have to pay a "road user fee" in advance, maintain a sticker on the windshield, and make sure the odometer doesn't go past what's been licensed on the window sticker. total PITA. and people who drive diesel vehicles do seem more inclined to look down on cyclists because cyclists don't "pay for the roads".

enigmaT120

I finally got around to doing the very simple algebra, and it turns out that the break-even point for a vehicle between the experimental mileage tax of $.015/mile and the current gas tax (Oregon's share) of $.30/gallon of gas. That point is 20 mpg. Anybody with a car that gets better than 20 mpg would pay more under the mileage tax, and anybody with a car that gets less than that would pay less.

CliffordK

Italy had a system where diesel had no taxes, but personal diesel vehicles paid high annual registration, so diesel owners would drive as much as possible because they were getting cheap fuel.

Here in Oregon, diesel trucks have a weight/mile tax, but diesel cars and pickups don't. So, cars and pickups must use the "proper" diesel.

Some places also have "red dye diesel" for use in tractors and off-road vehicles, and it can be a hefty fine to be caught with the red dye in one's tank.

tandempower

Federal funding that pays more to areas with a higher ratio of traffic to road-area (including non-motorized traffic). Then if people use the roads less and/or stimulate tourism that uses the roads less, they get more funding to build better roads and non-motorized infrastructure.

Funding quality instead of quantity; multimodal functionality; and rewarding effort to avoid driving

Walter S

You still need the support of the voting public that's made up mostly of car drivers.

Walter S

In South Carolina I used to buy "off-road" diesel. I understood it to have more sulphur, which made it illegal for street equipment, but cheaper and better especially for older motors.

Marcus_Ti

And how do you reduce traffic? No matter what the city/state government does my (or your) job ix XX miles away. The grocery store is X miles away. Building more roads does not ease traffic. Enlarging existing roads does not ease traffic.

Reducing traffic is a great slogan-but how do you do it?


Better public transit ends up running as large a bill as more infrastructure and maintaining it.

sam_cyclist

Karl Marx gets the last laugh.

CliffordK

Reduce population growth. Yes, that is complicated, but I hear very little discussion about it in the government. 1 kid per person, 2 kids per couple is reasonably sustainable. 6 or 8 kids in a family IS NOT. There is no reason people who have large families which are a burden to society should receive extra tax benefits. Don't give "deductions" beyond 1 kid per person, 2 per couple. Start taking away deductions with the 3rd or 4th kid.

Push gas prices up to $20 a gallon, and you'll see all types of alternative transportation use.

Federal funding is nothing more than taxing... then returning some of the taxes to the place they were collected (except they run a HUGE DEFICIT). But, in most cases, the roads could be funded locally.

There is, of course, a national benefit of maintaining an interstate highway system. But, much less of a benefit to the country as a whole to maintain local roads which should be funded locally.

Perhaps there are a few rural roads that can't be built with local money, but one should question whether those are needed as national expenditures.