I don't usually post political stuff on Facebook, but I feel strongly enough about this and wanted to do post a "Vote NO on 7" post. I was trying to boil down my opposition in a way that people not talking about this everyday would understand. Here is what I came up with...
Things are interesting out in KC to say the least as Show-Me Institute has committed six figures to fight Question A, which would set up a TDD for streetcar expansion. (If it passes next Tuesday, the next step is a vote in November on actually funding the TDD with a special sales tax with the TDD.)
So what happens if Amendment 7 passes and KC (and Saint Louis) Streetcar don't move forward?
I was doing a thought experiment today based on the statement that cargo trucks do more damage to roadways and, thus, should carry a higher responsibility for taxes to maintain those roads.
The experiment centered around the idea of mandating GPS data for all cargo trucks. This data, in concert with logs of each truck's gas purchase could produce a system wherein gas taxes are divvied up based on miles driven in each state (possibly with a weight/load component too), rather than the state in which the gas is purchased receiving all the tax revenue.
If, for instance, a driver logged, say, a flat $200 gas purchase in Indianapolis, Indiana on a trip that ended in Kansas City, Kansas, the GPS data could determine the mileage in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas -- with the vast majority of mileage obviously in Illinois and Missouri.
Based on these logs, submitted monthly to a federal department, the company would then be charged the appropriate tax which the department then allocates to each state accordingly.
In this way, there's no gas-free"flyover" trucking, which, in turn, reduces the need for state-by-state tolling (at least on the trucking side). The companies, in turn, know they're being taxed fairly and reliably.
Like I said -- just a thought experiment, but one that keeps floating around my head. Obviously, there's nuances and details unique to the trucking industry I'm not knowledgeable on, as well as the inevitable number-fudging or "faulty GPS" some companies would likely utilize to save some scratch.
Thoughts?
Edit: Obviously, a solution such as this would need cooperation and approval from all states (or at least a geographically-large area of contiguous states, as a start). To ease trucking companies into it, the government could provide credits to assist in updating fleets' GPS systems. Another concession may be formalizing state gas taxes for truckers into one specific amount -- I imagine an equalized/average of all current state gas taxes, minus the high- and low-end outliers, might produce a reasonable rate.
"The International Fuel Tax Agreement (or IFTA) is an agreement between the lower 48 states of the United States and the Canadian provinces, to simplify the reporting of fuel use by motor carriers that operate in more than one jurisdiction. Alaska, Hawaii, and the Canadian territories do not participate. An operating carrier with IFTA receives an IFTA license and two decals for each qualifying vehicle it operates. The carrier files a quarterly fuel tax report. This report is used to determine the net tax or refund due and to redistribute taxes from collecting states to states that it is due."
"Simply stated, IFTA works as a "pay now or pay later" system. As commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) buy fuel, any fuel taxes paid to the states is credited to that licensee's account. At the end of the fiscal quarter, the licensee completes their fuel tax report, listing all miles traveled in all participating jurisdictions and lists all gallons purchased in the same. Then the average fuel mileage is applied to the miles traveled to determine the tax liability to each jurisdiction. Three states—Kentucky, New Mexico, and New York—have "weight-mile" taxes in addition to the standard fuel tax. Oregon has just a weight-mile tax. Any amount of fuel taxes due (or refund due) is then paid to (or 'by' in the case of a refund) the base jurisdiction who issued the license. The member jurisdictions then take care of transferring the funds accordingly. Audits are conducted only by the base state and fuel bonds are rarely required"
f you think that a truck weighing 10 times my car would wear out the roads only 10 times as fast, you'd be very wrong, very wrong. That's what the Fourth Power Rule (FPR) is all about.
FPR says that, roughly speaking, the rate at which a vehicle destroys a road is proportional not to its weight but to the FOURTH POWER of its weight. This law has to be applied carefully, though. The more the weight is distributed evenly, the less wear. It is customary to divide the weight by the number of axles to normalize this rule. Thus, if my car weighs T tons and has 2 axles, its adjusted weight it T/2. The truck then weighs 10T and has, say, 5 axles. The adjusted ratio is then (10T/5) divided by (T/2), or 4. Since rate of road wear is proportional to the fourth power of this adjusted ratio, the damage due to the truck is roughly 4 to the 4th power or 256 times the damage due to my car. If the trucks owners were truly paying their share, they would have to pay 256 dollars for every dollar I pay. This is not even close to being true in any state I checked.
Note that the quoted example illustrates a pretty light truck. A full tractor trailer is up around 40T or 80,000 lb., which is about double what's shown. The damage done per pass is closer to 4,000 times that of the hypothetical passenger car.
A proportional fuel tax, as unfair as the trucking lobby would paint it, is still heavily tilted in favor of trucks.
The Fourth Power Rule isn't some political nonsense made up by trucking opponents. It's been well established in the industry and trade groups for decades.
That's why rising fuel economy is a great thing and not a reason to not raise the gas tax. It''s shifting the burden to where it belongs. Amendment 7 proponents keep throwing out rising fuel economy as justification for the sales tax (never mentioning inflation which has been a much bigger factor). It's a red herring. We could just raise the gas tax all that more or make the diesel tax higher than the gas tax. We'll still be eons away from parity to the damage done. Not politically viable? Well then we can take a hard look at which roads are overbuilt and not returning enough economically to justify their extravagance.
^ It's a DoubleClick ad (aka Google). It's everywhere (even on ESPN for me). With over $4 million in funding available for the campaign, I'm not really surprised.
mill204 wrote:^ It's a DoubleClick ad (aka Google). It's everywhere (even on ESPN for me). With over $4 million in funding available for the campaign, I'm not really surprised.
What will be surprising to me is if they don't get a second ad up on television.... the current one featuring Jimmy Ray with his younger brother Jimmy Bob and their nephew Cletus may have an appeal to the good ole boys but they really could use something a little more sophisticated in the mix.
im sure they have done plenty of research on what type of voter will be voting next Tuesday and are focused on those voters.
Its a waste of time and money to try to move a person from NO to YES, at best all you need to do is move them from NO to Not vote NO.
^ Oh I'm sure they've done their research on target audience but it certainly isn't a waste of time or money to run different ads to different segments in a tight race if you have the resources.
There's really not a way to know how this vote is going to go. Both sides seem to think they are going to win, and the fact that the Yes on 7 side is throwing so much cash at it could either mean they are uncomfortable with their position in the polling they have conducted, or they are ahead but want to make sure their investments in Jefferson City aren't squandered away by the voters.
There really isnt 2 sides here...well there is but its the Pro A7 side, the professional campaign and the other side is no new taxes voters.... the no on 7 crowd is not a serious threat to the pro 7 campaign, or at least they don't see them as a threat, there are reaching minimal amount of people.
^ ^ Their polling showed them at 53% before the media campaign really kicked in.... I think that gives them optimism but I'm sure they are smart enough to not feel too comfortable as polling is a tricky business to begin with and this ballot issue is a particularly difficult one to get a handle on. Support was highest from Democrats and least from Republicans, btw, which could be a problem for proponents as the other measures (particularly guns and farming) seem destined to draw more republicans.... (hence the Balding White Men commercial).
Let's not forget that St. Louis recently shut down stretches of it's busiest and arguably most important Interstate (40/64) for two years and despite many worries it was not much of a problem. My point is, I don't think the sky is falling. No need to tax yourself a little poorer in tough economic times when the cost of everything is going up and there's scant jobs just to create another giant slush fund of money for politicians and their cronies to start wasting and doling out on questionable projects that promote spawl. I'm certain we'll figure out a way to get by just fine and our most glaring issues will be addressed without this tax increase.
^ you are right the sky isn't failing, it never does but with no additional state funds to match our cut of federal funds in a given year we will send about $800m to DC via the federal gas tax we pay here and get $0 back (also 15.5% of the federal gas tax goes to transit)
dbInSouthCity wrote:^ you are right the sky isn't failing, it never does but with no additional state funds to match our cut of federal funds in a given year we will send about $800m to DC via the federal gas tax we pay here and get $0 back (also 15.5% of the federal gas tax goes to transit)
So wait. First, thanks for the info. I never claimed to know about every aspect of this.
So, this is completely ***** ***** from top to bottom then? There's nothing about that deal that makes any sense or am I crazy? Let me get this straight. Missouri takes in taxes on gasoline and ultimately sends the money to the Federal Government who in turn redistributes the money but only to states who can come up with more money (on top of the originally collected gas tax money) and states who don't are just out of luck? So, like, Montana could end up with all the gas tax money collected in Missouri, theoretically? That setup is similar to the mafia isn't it? Extortion?
I'm confused and you can bet 90% of the voters aren't going to have an clear understanding of this. What a disaster.
How is it that we got ourselves into a postion to not have the funds needed to get the Fed money in the first place? We blew it then had to scramble and raise taxes? Eh, nevermind.....
