[legitster]

I want to set aside the author's disdain and polemics for a second:

- The federal gas tax is low and unchanged. States have their own gas taxes in addition that do go up and have done so a lot in the last several decades.

- The current compromise is to collect it once at a federal level and split the proceeds with the states. This has problems, but it's better than having every state track individual mileage on public roads (ew).

- Gas tax goes towards more than just fixing road damage - it's pretty essential in funding public transit and road infrastructure in general.

- Obviously EVs currently account for a small fraction of road use right now, but they mostly drive on dense, urban infrastructure - the most expensive to build and maintain.

- As EVs inevitably grow in popularity, this will have to be solved eventually anyway.

There are probably a million things we could debate about with the proposed infrastructure bill. But Electek's increasingly toxic coverage of these topics is not doing EVs in general any favors.

[tw04]

> The current compromise is to collect it once at a federal level and split the proceeds with the states. This has problems, but it's better than having every state track individual mileage on public roads (ew).

“Has problems” is an interesting way to gloss over we’ve got an administration that has openly declared war on any state he didn’t win and will no doubt withhold funds from the states he doesn't like, the same ones that will be providing the vast majority of the revenue in question.

I literally cannot think of a worse way to enforce this than letting the federal government collect the tax and then distribute it to the states as they see fit.

[legitster]

> I literally cannot think of a worse way to enforce this than letting the federal government collect the tax and then distribute it to the states as they see fit.

I mean, this is more or less how it already works with all the federal department funding. The same administration wants to abolish the Department of Education which is guilty of the same thing. So no side is really being consistent in this particular area.

[tw04]

Stop with the “both sides are the same” nonsense. Red states got some of the largest funding in Biden’s stimulus package despite not voting for him.

The democrats have consistently tried to pass bills and funding for the needy regardless of political affiliation or state of residence. Trump is literally the only one trying to use the federal government to punish states that didn’t vote for him and his Republican colleagues have been happy to oblige.

[croon]

> I mean, this is more or less how it already works with all the federal department funding

Which is why it's bad to add to that.

> The same administration wants to abolish the Department of Education which is guilty of the same thing. So no side is really being consistent in this particular area.

I'm not aware of a time where DoE was used as a political cudgel against specific states, care to elaborate here?

That DoE can allogate disproportionately from wealthier states to poorer states based on need isn't the issue. The issue is when it's based on spite.

[legitster]

> The issue is when it's based on spite.

Obviously nobody has weaponized these agencies like Trump. But it's worth pointing out that the way DoE funds have been doled out over the years have been deferential and usually follow each administrations' pet projects.

It's a fair criticism to have over a national EV road tax as well, but it's not that unusual a precedent.

[jmye]

> The federal gas tax is low and unchanged. States have their own gas taxes in addition that do go up and have done so a lot in the last several decades.

Why is this relevant? Aside from your “polemics”, I mean.

> Obviously EVs currently account for a small fraction of road use right now, but they mostly drive on dense, urban infrastructure - the most expensive to build and maintain.

I suppose if it’s a small fraction of that then this all makes perfect sense. What is the specific fraction they should be funding then, and why is the federal government the right group to collect it? Or are we just making excuses for politics we like?

> As EVs inevitably grow in popularity, this will have to be solved eventually anyway.

So now is a good time? Why?

[dlcarrier]

    - Gas tax goes towards more than just fixing road damage

Earmarking never sticks around; someone always finds a loophole to spend funds on anything unrelated.

[bdangubic]

unfortunately 100% true. the “road” projects take roughly 7865x the time they take in any other country so roughly 98.56% of that collected money is skimmed

[johnea]

I don't want to set the author's disdain aside at all. It's 100% justified.

This is really just a tax on leaving the stone age.

Especially given that my nissan leaf weights a little more than 1/2 of what an escalade weighs. It's purely just another disincentive to electrify, brought to you by the burn baby burn lobby.

The US has become the seed state of global idiocracy.

[Sweepi]

"Obviously EVs currently account for a small fraction of road use right now, but they mostly drive on dense, urban infrastructure - the most expensive to build and maintain."

Is it the most expensive by $/length of road, or by $/(vehicle * travel distance)?

[Steltek]

Irrelevant to the fact that city roads are not Federal roads! State and municipal taxes are already doing the job here.