Elana Schor // February 10, 2010
The prospect of an eventual move away from the gas tax and towards a fee on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has sparked consternation from some well-known bloggers this week, with Matt Yglesiasasserting that "a VMT [tax] has no advantages whatsoever over higher gasoline taxes" and Andrew Samwick suggesting that declining fuel tax revenues mean that tax rates need to go even higher.
That absence of a "direct nexus to road use" is a concept not easily understood by many Americans, especially drivers long inundated with misleading claims that the gas tax constitutes a user fee. As Ryan Avent has explained on this page, a user fee assumes that everyone on the road pays for the time they spend and the burden they place on it.
But while 25 gallons of taxed gas will last for an estimated 725 miles in a 2010 Ford Escape hybrid SUV (at a combined 29 miles per gallon), the lighter 2010 Ford Mustang (estimated at 19 miles per gallon) would go just 425 miles while paying the same amount of gas tax. The heavier car ends up putting more stress on the road while paying less for it. Is that an equitable system of maintaining the transportation network?
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