Friday, November 25

Someone wants to tax hybrids, because...

From the Associated Press, regarding proposals to make up for funding deficits in the highway bill:
Proposals for the longer term could be more controversial. One is that owners of hybrids and other alternative fuel vehicles pay a vehicle fee, the argument being that drivers should bear their fair share to fill the potholes and fix the bridges, regardless of how much or what kind of fuel they use.

Good plan. Let's discourage the sort of vehicles which don't rely as heavily on the oil companies and their record profits as the other vehicles.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, it would be a lot better simply to increase the gas tax--that would increase the incentive to use a high-mileage hybrid (or any other high-mileage car) with no additional bureaucracy needed. Of course, a simple tax increase in this day is a hard sell, no matter how much fiscal sense it makes.

In any event, a tax on hybrids will be counterproductive because before too long every car manufactured will have at least some hybrid features, such as idle stop and a more powerful electrical system. And since not all hybrids are high-mileage cars any more, sad to say, the whole justification falls down.