Hybrid Cars, Taxes, and Big Brother

[GregoryA]

Owners of hybrid cars are not consuming enough gas. So they are helping the environment while helping their pocket books. Awesome right? Wrong!

State governments like California' and Oregon's are finding with the decrease of gas consumption also comes a decrease in tax revenue to fund transportation costs.

That's OK they have a solution. They want to install GPS systems in hybrid cars to record milage and tax hybrid owners in that way.

So not only are these folks who went out there to be the first to by hybrid technology with positive motives (saving the environment and/or saving money) getting taxed for a product they use less of, but now the government will no where they have been and where they are at all times.

This is wrong on so many levels.

[TNRighty]

I heard about this a few months ago. Looks like environmental conservation is OK just so long as it doesn't cost the government money.

This is a perfect example of the hypocricy that underlies the government's environmental "policies". There are people out there who are honestly looking out for the environment, and I support that. However, government environmental policies are not aimed at improving the air or water quality. These policies are in place to make money for the government through fines and "polution grants". Its a money-making mechanism, period. If their real goal was to clean up the environment they wouldn't allow factories to purchase from the government the right to exceed the various polution limits defined in the regulations.

If the real goal was to clean up the environment, they'd give a pat on the back to hybrid car owners instead of dropping a "tax by the mile" on them.

[Ian]

Well if they drop the hybrid-tax, how are they going to fund the thousands of "unobtrusive" windmills they want to litter all over the state?

[TNRighty]

Can you tax wind? Will they put a tachometer on my windmill and tax me according to its RPM's?

[GregoryA]

Often non-conseratives (with the help of the words of some in the conservative camp) tend to label conservatives as being enemies of the environment.

We are the ones who wish to conserve thus being conservationist. As with all things, conservatives apply reason and logic to issues concerning the environment.
We strive for a sensible balance between the needs of people and the preservation of the environment.