Remember Jack- you are a Portsmouth Trojan- a team I quit in early
freshman practice to my life-long shame. But I have many friends who
did, like yourself. So, the ball is in Middletown's hands on the five.
Take a time-out. Rest and come back and fight the dreaded political
secular-progressives friend!. Would Paul Walker allow you to quit? I
think not!
Sam
On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Jack Plymale wrote:
> Sam, I really have no hope for the political salvation of our country.
> I am 86 years old and guys like me are not going to fight any more
> battles........even if we could Jack P
>
> On 10/28/13, Sam Kegley wrote:
>> Monday, October 28, 2013
>>
>> Milage tax via new technology ... Thx Ramey H!
>>
>> Labels Cars, taxes
>>
>>
>>
>> This smells terribly BAD to me, Ramey H! I detest our supposed
>> representatives who are always seeking new ways to tax us American
>> citizens. I recently paid a fine for a traffic corner camera
>> conviction. Will there soon be a tax on bed time? UGH! Big Brother,
>> aka NSA, is too darned nosy!
>>
>> Sam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue
>>
>> The devices would track every mile you drive —possibly including your
>> location — and the government would use the data to draw up a tax
>> bill.
>>
>> Comments
>> 1432
>>
>>
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>> Email
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>> 19K
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>>
>>
>>
>> Ryan Morrison is chief executive of True Mileage, a Long Beach company
>> testing devices that can track drivers' mileage. "People will be more
>> willing to do this if you do not track their speed and you do not
>> track their location," he says. (Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times /
>> October 24, 2013)
>>
>> Jury hits Toyota with $3-million verdict in sudden acceleration death case
>> Photos: The 10 worst cars sold in America
>> Photos: Cars after crash test
>> Cars' safety systems are getting a whole lot smarter
>> Ex-NSA chief talks on a train, fellow rider tweets, tweets go viral
>>
>>
>> By Evan Halper
>> October 26, 2013, 7:11 p.m.
>>
>> WASHINGTON — As America's road planners struggle to find the cash to
>> mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution
>> in a little black box that fits neatly by the dashboard of your car.
>> The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit
>> that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial
>> attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the
>> outdated system for funding America's major roads.
>> The usually dull arena of highway planning has suddenly spawned
>> intense debate and colorful alliances. Libertarians have joined
>> environmental groups in lobbying to allow government to use the little
>> boxes to keep track of the miles you drive, and possibly where you
>> drive them — then use the information to draw up a tax bill.
>> PHOTOS: Kelley Blue Book's 10 best 'green' cars
>> The tea party is aghast. The American Civil Liberties Union is deeply
>> concerned, too, raising a variety of privacy issues.
>> And while Congress can't agree on whether to proceed, several states
>> are not waiting. They are exploring how, over the next decade, they
>> can move to a system in which drivers pay per mile of road they roll
>> over. Thousands of motorists have already taken the black boxes, some
>> of which have GPS monitoring, for a test drive.
>> "This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of something
>> we might choose to do," said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the
>> Southern California Assn. of Governments, which is planning for the
>> state to start tracking miles driven by every California motorist by
>> 2025. "There is going to be a change in how we pay these taxes. The
>> technology is there to do it."
>> The push comes as the country's Highway Trust Fund, financed with
>> taxes Americans pay at the gas pump, is broke. Americans don't buy as
>> much gas as they used to. Cars get many more miles to the gallon. The
>> federal tax itself, 18.4 cents per gallon, hasn't gone up in 20 years.
>> Politicians are loath to raise the tax even one penny when gas prices
>> are high.
>> "The gas tax is just not sustainable," said Lee Munnich, a
>> transportation policy expert at the University of Minnesota. His state
>> recently put tracking devices on 500 cars to test out a pay-by-mile
>> system. "This works out as the most logical alternative over the long
>> term," he said.
>> Wonks call it a mileage-based user fee. It is no surprise that the
>> idea appeals to urban liberals, as the taxes could be rigged to change
>> driving patterns in ways that could help reduce congestion and
>> greenhouse gases, for example. California planners are looking to the
>> system as they devise strategies to meet the goals laid out in the
>> state's ambitious global warming laws. But Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.),
>> chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has said he, too, sees
>> it as the most viable long-term alternative. The free marketeers at
>> the Reason Foundation are also fond of having drivers pay per mile.
>> "This is not just a tax going into a black hole," said Adrian Moore,
>> vice president of policy at Reason. "People are paying more directly
>> into what they are getting."
>> The movement is also bolstered by two former U.S. Transportation
>> secretaries, who in a 2011 report urged Congress to move in the
>> pay-per-mile direction.
>> The U.S. Senate approved a $90-million pilot project last year that
>> would have involved about 10,000 cars. But the House leadership killed
>> the proposal, acting on concerns of rural lawmakers representing
>> constituents whose daily lives often involve logging lots of miles to
>> get to work or into town.
>> Several states and cities are nonetheless moving ahead on their own.
>> The most eager is Oregon, which is enlisting 5,000 drivers in the
>> country's biggest experiment. Those drivers will soon pay the mileage
>> fees instead of gas taxes to the state. Nevada has already completed a
>> pilot. New York City is looking into one. Illinois is trying it on a
>> limited basis with trucks. And the I-95 Coalition, which includes 17
>> state transportation departments along the Eastern Seaboard (including
>> Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida), is studying how they
>> could go about implementing the change.
>> The concept is not a universal hit.
>> In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the
>> devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being
>> able to monitor their every move.
>> "Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major
>> problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance
>> management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not
>> something people wanted."
>> As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website:
>> "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged
>> tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy
>> technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep
>> records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."
>> Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable
>> technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles
>> a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you
>> can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.
>> The hunt for that technology has led some state agencies to a small
>> California startup called True Mileage. The firm was not originally in
>> the business of helping states tax drivers. It was seeking to break
>> into an emerging market in auto insurance, in which drivers would pay
>> based on their mileage. But the devices it is testing appeal to
>> highway planners because they don't use GPS and deliver a limited
>> amount of information, uploaded periodically by modem.
>> "People will be more willing to do this if you do not track their
>> speed and you do not track their location," said Ryan Morrison, chief
>> executive of True Mileage. "There have been some big mistakes in some
>> of these state pilot programs. There are a lot less expensive and less
>> intrusive ways to do this."
>> In Oregon, planners are experimenting with giving drivers different
>> choices. They can choose a device with or without GPS. Or they can
>> choose not to have a device at all, opting instead to pay a flat fee
>> based on the average number of miles driven by all state residents.
>> Other places are hoping to sell the concept to a wary public by having
>> the devices do more, not less. In New York City, transportation
>> officials are seeking to develop a taxing device that would also be
>> equipped to pay parking meter fees, provide "pay-as-you-drive"
>> insurance, and create a pool of real-time speed data from other
>> drivers that motorists could use to avoid traffic.
>> "Motorists would be attracted to participate … because of the value of
>> the benefits it offers to them," says a city planning document.
>> Some transportation planners, though, wonder if all the talk about
>> paying by the mile is just a giant distraction. At the Metropolitan
>> Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area, officials say
>> Congress could very simply deal with the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund
>> by raising gas taxes. An extra one-time or annual levy could be
>> imposed on drivers of hybrids and others whose vehicles don't use much
>> gas, so they pay their fair share.
>> "There is no need for radical surgery when all you need to do is take
>> an aspirin," said Randy Rentschler, the commission's director of
>> legislation and public affairs. "If we do this, hundreds of millions
>> of drivers will be concerned about their privacy and a host of other
>> things."
>> evan.halper@latimes.com
>> Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times
>> Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
>> Posted by Sam, Kegley at 3:10 AM
>>
>
>
> --
> Jack P.
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