Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:27:32 -0500
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Metro is 30
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Mike B. wrote:

[...]
>
>  Taxing one group for the benefit of another is a recent aberration in
>  the USA (started about 100 years ago), but it is a poor way to
>  proceed.  If mass transit is really workable, it will be able to pay
>  for itself.  Putting the costs on the backs of car drivers as a way
>  to fund it and to convince car drivers to use it is a doomed plan.
>  It would be doomed even, or especially, if it succeeded.  If mass
>  transit can't support itself, what will fund it when all the car
>  drivers switch to it and aren't paying gas taxes anymore for
>  instance?  Or when they switch to cars that don't burn gas, or
>  anything else paid for at a pump?  Remember, you can't change just
>  one thing...

I agree with everything you've said in this post, and would like to
amplify on this point:  The incursion of higher-gas-mileage hybrid cars
already has a number of state legislatures (notably California's, but
also Virginia's) considering taxing us on our *mileage* to make up for
the money theoretically "lost at the pump."  Expect to see a lot of
odometer failures if this becomes law.

--Ted White