Governor Kulongoski's latest brainstorm is to charge a mileage tax on drivers instead of charging them the usual gasoline tax on the amount of gasoline they use. First the government wants people to conserve, get away from using so much fossil fuel, and buy smaller more fuel-efficient cars. Most people have generally agreed with this wisdom and have gave up gas guzzler's for smaller gas saving vehicles, instead of being rewarded or leaving the taxing structure as is the government wants to tax driver's mileage. The poor citizen cannot win for losing.
Oregon's revenue from gas tax is down about $4.2 million due to fuel-efficient cars, and due to a slow economy. The government claims that the new tax is a way to pay for much needed road repairs. Create jobs by rebuilding our roads hwy's and bridges. I could agree that we need to repair our infrastructure and doing so would create many needed jobs. But on the other hand charging people on how far they drive is discriminating against rural living people who have to drive distances each day to their jobs. I also happen to believe that it is nothing more than big brother documenting and following your movements and I certainly do not agree with the government following me or knowing where I have been, it is absolutely none of their dam business. Number one reason why I do not have a cell phone because I do not like the government spying on me, I had enough of that with the Bush administration spying on my regular phone and internet e-mail and search sites.
I guess we could raise the gas tax several cents to pay for the needed repair but here is another problem what about all the people that are buying electric cars? They will be using our roads but not paying for the usage like the rest of the people who cannot afford an electric car. What about the people who ride bicycles? Why not charge them a usage fee after all they are using the road way too.
People who live outside of the Metro areas will be paying the bulk of the road repair, is it fair to place a burden on people who do not have public transportation available or workers who have to drive a significant distance to their place of work? People who live out side of the Metro area have to drive at least 35 miles to see a doctor people cannot afford all these new taxes. Oregon has one of the highest tax rates in the nation, where is all our money going? Where is it being spent?
I suggest that the Governor start charging the corporations their fair share of the tax burden instead of the usual $10.00 per year. If the corporations were to pay their fair share we would have enough money to fix the roads, bridges, and support our schools and health systems. Instead our government continues to rely on the average worker to carry the burden of the tax structure.
Some people will argue at you cannot tax corporations that provide jobs for people. I ask why not? These corporations are making a fortune in profits off their workers, they are receiving tax breaks, tax reductions, free taxes, no taxes, reduced taxes, no taxes for 7, 15, 20 years or forever, come on people there must be some big changes at the top of the food chain first, if we want to have a healthy planet, thriving community, and a good economy.
Here the government has handed out trillions to bail out Wall Street and what have they done except piss off the money, has the housing market improved NO! Has your 401 K or investments improved? No! Has the economy improved as a whole? Hell NO! In fact it has gotten worse and worse each day and there is no rainbow in sight for quite some time.
Companies paying the minimum tax claim no income tax liability, but that does not mean that these companies are failing Corporations pay less than 5 percent of Oregon's income taxes, reports the Oregon Center for Public Policy The ten dollars PGE paid in Oregon income taxes in 2002 equaled just 0.0000005% of the company's operating revenues that year.
America needs to start manufacturing her own products, from toys to cars; we need to have our own food instead of importing milk meat etc from all over the world. If we did these few simple things there would be plenty of revenue to sustain our infrastructure through added income taxes, why? More people would be working and contributing to the government coffers, spreading the cost to everyone. I do not agree with the tax on mileage driven.