Replacing Gas Tax with Mileage Tax

The discussion of replacing a gasoline tax with a tax on miles driven (mileage tax) is becoming more heated (even though President Obama says the Federal government isn't interested in doing it). Attached is the text of an e-mail I have sent to all of my state and federal elected representatives.

I've been reading more and more discussion about this topic - a replacement of the gasoline tax with a tax based on the number of miles driven. I am against this idea for several reasons -

1) Privacy - yet again, Big Brother will be tracking my every move. The fact of the matter is, that once the government can start to monitor how many miles I am driving, it's a small step to now gauge my speed, where I am driving to and from and transmitting this information to a central database that already contains too much information about me. I don't care to be monitored in this way. It's a slippery slope, and we are already on it with EZPass. This would push us further down that slope.

2) Cost of equipment - if all new cars will be required to have a GPS device, a counting mechanism and some sort of transmitter, who will bear the cost of the added technology? The consumer, of course. I could see this adding several hundred dollars to the price of a new car.

3) Retrofitting older vehicles - again, who pays for the cost, if this were to be required? Also, older vehicles don't necessarily have the means to handle additional devices requiring electrical power - so that could lead to additional upgrades of the vehicles systems. Meaning additional cost. And any sort of government subsidy of these items would end up costing me in the end.

I also own 2 classic cars, from the '60's and '70's. They have relatively rudimentary electrical systems, so retrofitting any sort of GPS device would be almost impossible at any sort of reasonable cost. I also value the authenticity of these cars, so any sort of modern tracking system would destroy that authenticity and impact the value of the car.

4) Infrastructure to run this thing - more government bureaucrats? And I keep thinking about the initial application of EZPass here in the Northeast - there were many many problems when this system was implemented, and even today, there are problems with phantom tickets and bad transponders.

5) This is completely counter to the move to get people to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles! An increased gas tax would certainly incent people to continue to look at vehicles that get better economy; this sort of tax doesn't drive that behavior at all. We already have too many large SUV's with only a driver on our NJ roads, although the recent spike in gas prices has certainly started a trend the other way. Eliminating the gas tax could reverse that trend.

6) This sort of tax really penalizes those who MUST drive for a living. My wife is a home health-casr nurse. As such, she drives 200+ miles each week, caring for patients that cannot leave their homes to visit a doctor or healthcare facility. This Miles-Driven Tax would impact our income and further inhibit our ability to pay for college and save for retirement, to say nothing of our day-to-day needs.

This issue is one that rates very highly with me, and I would definitely look at your stand on this issue as an indicator of whether I will vote for you come re-election time.