The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) never tires of holding meetings, intended to highlight ways for the state’s roadbuilders to get more taxpayer money. The next opportunity, a gathering of the State Transportation Commission, was featured in the Everett Herald, under the provocative headline “Should we pay per mile instead of per gallon? “
For the planners at WSDOT, it’s never a good time to stop looking for new tax ideas, even though the gas tax brought in “over $1.2 billion in fuel tax revenue for the state” in 2014. The latest scheme is to look South to Oregon, which is “furthest along” in figuring out how to charge people for the miles they drive, besides just the taxes they pay on gas pumped into their vehicle.
You can guarantee this won’t go over well with people in rural areas, who must drive further to meet life’s necessities, but most of the WSDOT bureaucrats answer to bosses from Seattle-to-Olympia, not Eastern Washington.
CementCityBoy says
And they will spend as much of our money as it takes to get more money from us.