Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig has proposed a vehicle mileage tax to pay for a $3 to $4 trillion infrastructure plan. MSNBC. The tax would pay for the infrastructure plan that would build roads and bridges. The tax would differ from gas taxes which are paid at the pump. Instead drivers would be charged based on how many miles they drive. However, the tax has not been finalized and other options are being considered.
My Comment:
I can't think of a more regressive tax then a mileage tax. This would be a huge burden on the lower working classes and a major boon to the rich and powerful. Poor people are dependent on their cars and will not be able to drive less to avoid the tax. It would be extremely expensive for the average person, especially as gas prices raise naturally due to a lack of new drilling in the United States and further instability in the Middle East and Venezuela.
For the upper working classes this tax would not affect them at all. Many of them now work from home, a trend that will continue in the future. Plus they would be more easily able to afford any tax rates. And even those that do drive will be able to afford the new electric cars that would be immune to this tax.
It would be the upper classes that would benefit the most from Biden's trillion dollar infrastructure plan. Some lower class people would get new jobs but I doubt seriously that most of that money would go anywhere near poorer people. It would go to the upper classes and the wealthy. And it would be funding nonsense like green energy and racial justice, which obviously have nothing to do with infrastructure.
I do think that America's infrastructure does need some investment but this is not the time to do it. We have gone through a massive economic crisis and we just don't have the money to spend. The economic contraction and the trillions spent on Coronavirus relief did not come cheap and I can't imagine spending more on top that.
But will any of this come to pass? I do think the mileage tax is probably dead. Nobody likes this idea except for out of touch wierdos like Pete Buttigieg and actually trying to implment it would probably cost the Democrats the 2022 midterms and it wouldn't even be close. It's enough to ensure that nobody in the suburbs would vote for Democrats.
And the infrastructure bill? I think it's probably dead as well. I don't think the Democrats have the 50 votes in the Senate they would need without the filibuster or the 60 they need without it. I also think that generally a party that is in control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency only have time for one signature bill. In the Obama term it was Obamacare and in Trump's it was the tax cut. I think for Biden it was the Coronavirus relief bill and that's probably all they are going to accomplish.
Still, this idea has to be one of the worst ones I have seen in awhile. It is such a slap in the face for the lower classes. One of the only real advantages the poor in the United States have is that travel and gasoline is cheap and this tax would take that away. And it would be at a time when the average household cannot afford higher taxes at all. It's just a terrible idea.
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