President Obama Says No to Tax Per Miles Driven
Last week I wrote about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s idea about imposing a federal tax on the American citizens for how many miles they drive. Later that day President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that President Obama supported this idea.
Certainly this is good news for the citizens of America but it does leave us with several questions.
The questions that come to mind are, why would Roy LaHood make a statement saying that a tax on miles driven should be looked into if he knew that President Obama opposed it? Did he know that the president opposed it? Is there miscommunication in the Obama administration? Was there a reason why this idea was leaked? Does Barack Obama truly oppose this tax?
All of these questions are linked and I think that they can be answered together. I think it is entirely likely that President Obama is floating out these trial balloons to see what the public reaction is to these types of proposals. He has his Transportation Secretary leak out the idea of a miles driven tax to see what the reaction is to it. With the public outcry against this idea he is then able to backtrack and deny that he was really looking into this tax. He gets the best of both words.
President Obama and his administration are on the same page, they all know what is going on behind closed doors, so there is no miscommunication here. I just find it too hard to believe that Obama’s Transportation Secretary would introduce an idea that he knew Obama didn’t support. He released this information with President Obama’s support.
This was a deliberate feeling out process to gauge where the American people stood on this issue. And they were not happy.
President Obama was then able to backtrack and claim he never supported this idea when in fact he knew that this idea was about to be floated.
President Obama saw the reaction and reacted to it. He now opposes the idea of a miles driven tax but two questions still remain.
Did he support the miles driven tax before he saw the reaction to it? You have read my answer to that question.
And.
Will he support it in the future? You can probably guess what I think the answer to that question is.
America's Watchtower 
I don’t know if he will endorse this foolishness. The greenies are some pissed off because this will hurt the global climate change crap they are pushing. Much better for them to raise taxes on gas about 2.00 per gallon.
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True, their idea is to make it unaffordable to drive.
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Classic “trial balloon”. If it gets shot down, at least you’ve raised the issue to gauge support or resistance.
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The more I think about this the more I believe that this was a trial balloon. There is no way that Obama didn’t have a hand in getting that idea out to the public for reaction.
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I think you are reading a lot into this.. “jumping to conclusions” as the saying goes. Can you imagine how many things Obama has on his table right now? How can you really be so sure he knew about this?
One thing I will agree on – the tax per miles driven seems like a really bad idea. I’m glad Obama is against it.
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Obama can afford to be “against” this. The governors of Oregon,California,NY and MA all support it and that’s how it’s gonna roll folks.
The technology exists and even in the tax haven conservative states it is actually a no brainer.
1.You collect gas taxes and refund a portion to the tax payers
2.You suck up huge sums o’ cash and if you’re lucky your state buffers your wallet bite with eliminating things like the excise tax. In MA that’ll probably NOT be the case.
3. In state collection of big $$$ helps you stop being a “donor” state when it comes to transportation funds.
Get ready for your chip America. It’s coming and coming sooner than later.
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Sooner or later we are all going to fall victim to this type of rape.
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Being an old trucker, I’ve been used to being taxed on miles traveled. They have already raised ithe taxes on the truckers so high that,I figured they had to figure out how to raise it somewhere else. This usually comes as a rumour to tax the general traveler, then the general public’s outcry silences the rumour.
Usually the 4 wheeler always says, well, the trucker should be the ones to pay that! And the government throws it on the trucking industry. So I expect to see it soon as a tax hike on the trucking industry.
Call it; My Rant for the day!
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Obama said no to a tax? Just picture ace Ventura saying “wee-eeeew!” big whoop. Nice try, P.O.
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