Another Ridiculous Tax

The Lord of Truth sent me this article a couple weeks ago. I only hope this is more inaccurate reporting from CBS...

College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment.

"I was paying about $500 a month," says Just.

So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW.

And what kind of mileage does he get?

"The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just.

And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.

Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."

Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.

"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.

Let me make a suggestion. If this idea is actually implemented in California, it's time for a referendum to defeat it. And I want to amend my state constitution to kill it before it gets anywhere near Virginia.

Taxing drivers for using the roads is fine by me, but why not make more extensive use of user fees (like tolls) instead? There's no way the money collected from this new tax will be used only to maintain roads. Can someone explain to state as well as federal governments that maybe they need to cut their spending?