CBS Evening News. Tax on miles driven in one's car

[oneighty]

Citing as an example a hybrid auto reducing gas consumption and by extension also reducing highway tax receipts puts the government in a bit of a bind. Solution put a tax on miles driven.

Lesson learned;It does not pay to conserve gasoline.

When I installed energy saving furnaces, windows etc. in my home my gas bills never went down. Prices are just increased in order to maintain a steady dollar flow for the gas company. "Yes." They say; "But just think what you would be paying without your conservation methods."

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[merh]

1. I'll give you one, I have gas water and heating and stove.

I rarely use the heater and the stove. Over the last 2 years the gas company has come out and replaced by meter twice. They just don't think it is working! Then I get a huge bill - for the time when it wasn't working right!

[oneighty]

3. Once I had a water meter problem

The village insisted I must have a water leak. I called the meter manufacturer. They made a simple observation. If the inside the home meter and the remote outside indicator are not matched it could be showing ten times the water volume indicated. That proved to be the case. I presented the evidence to the head of the water dept. He still do not like me at all.

I suggest you get a second opinion on your gas meter from the manufacturer.

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[merh]

6. They just keep taking them and putting up new ones.

They don't charge me for the meters, they just change it out while I am at work without any type of notice. I come home to a note on the door saying "Call us if you want your gas service reactivated". Well, since taking a cold shower in the winter is really difficult, I have had to call them to send a guy out to check the pilot lights and to turn the gas back on. It is a huge pain in the ass!

[oneighty]

8. Does your state

have a Public Service Commission?

An aside; an acquaintance of mine installed a vent-less heater and her gas bill dropped dramatically. The gas company showed up to find out why. Of course they were satisfied it was not a faulty meter.

I do not understand them changing meters. They are very reliable instruments.

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[merh]

9. That's what I thought,

but in Dec of 2003 and again this January, I have come home to the note and a fight with the company reps. It is a huge inconvenience to have to call a techinician out late at night to come in, inspect my equipment, light my pilot lights and turn the damn gas on. I live alone and complained to dispatch that I don't let strangers in my house. The dispatcher replied that he wouldn't be a stranger, he would be driving their truck and wearing their uniform! :shrug:

I will contact the Public Service Commission, I never thought of that!

[dweller]

10. i'm using 2 ventless now

and have cut my heating almost in half from a full gas furnace. One is a larger unit that takes care of ~ 2/3 of the living space, and the other is the smallest available unit for a bath. The bedrooms get enough residual heat and we all love blankets anyway.

My task has been taking on the electric co. and using every trick i know to reduce consumption also. The e.co. includes in the monthly bill a chart showing what i used this month compared to last year this month. I'm not happy unless i've reduced by some amount the k-watts.
This month they provided a bill with "our price for electricity is 21% below the national average" printed on it. Yet they just asked the state commission for an increase.

it's a never-ending battle.

dp

[cthrumatrix]

2. it's all about getting more $$$$ from people.... I saw the story

watch how bush tries to raise taxes "to save soc sec"....lol

[idiosyncratic]

4. How many people will agree to the GPS units tracking their travel

that will be necessary to correctly calculate the mileage driven?

What they should do is tax the heavier vehicles, such as the obscene Hummer, double or triple since they do more damage to the roadways than a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight.

[oneighty]

5. Yes two good points

Invasion of privacy and weight of the vehicle.

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[rzemanfl]

7. The tax on a Hummer ought to be one of your kids, sent to Iraq.

Or if you have no kids, then an agreement to support the orphan of a soldier or one of the basket cases hidden in the VA hospitals. Instead, there is a huge tax break for buying one of these monsters if you use it in business, even if a Honda Civic would be sufficient for the task.

[Kansas Wyatt]

11. Let's really examine the lack of funding for roads...

First of all, there are State gasoline taxes included in the price at the pump to pay for roads, and I bet conservation does not reduce the State revenue that much to make that big of a difference, if at all. Especially when very light conservation vehicles would be better for roads, rather than heavier vehicles that break roads down.

Now, do States receive Federal money for highway upkeep and the expansion of highways?

Could the lack of State funding for roads have something to do with the Federal Government reducing funding to States, since George W. Bush has to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy and wars somehow (run up the debt & slash the budget)?

Well, it looks like State and Local Governments are going to have to tax their people more to pay for everything that those tax cut suckers thought they had already paid Federal taxes for. Guess which economic classes are going to end up paying for it?

[spanone]

12. I own a hybrid and that story pissed me off. It totally destroys the

concept of conservation as you say. It is utter bullshit. If someone is driving a two ton SUV it does a shit load more damage to the highways than my light weight Honda. Fucked if you do, Fucked if you don't.