How to Tax ICEs

…How to Tax ICEs...

Government bureaucrats will go to any length to impose their ideology on Americans.

Here is a new proposal that’s intended to encourage, i.e., force, Americans to buy battery-powered vehicles (BEVs).

Some cities have already established zones where people driving an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle are charged (or prevented) for driving within the zone.

Why not tax ICEs when they use roads outside cities?

An associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley said, 

“Economists know what to do when they see an externality: Slap a price on the activity equal to the social damages it causes.”

Putting a price on ICEs that use targeted roads would help reduce CO2 emissions, which many bureaucrats assume cause climate change.

The professor’s idea was to select high use or bottleneck areas where the tax would encourage people to avoid the areas, thereby also reducing congestion along with eliminating CO2 emissions.

But, he had to admit that such an approach would result in drivers of ICE vehicles finding alternative routes that could result in increased CO2 emissions.

He, of course, undertook to analyze the problem to arrive at a computer generated solution to reduce CO2 emissions while keeping people from using detours. He proposed a balance between the cost of the penalty and the avoidance of people using detours.

But the idea is too good to ignore.

The obvious answer is to tax all ICE vehicles when they use the Interstate Highway system. This avoids imposing the tax on local roads while greatly reducing the prospect of people using alternative routes because they take so much longer.

Such a policy would have the added benefit of encouraging trucking companies to adopt batteries or fuel cells.

The professor clearly didn’t think BIG enough. 

Somewhere, there must be a government bureaucrat who will seize the day and jump on this idea?

So stay alert to proposals from politicians in states such as California and New York. The idea is too good for bureaucrats to pass up.

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