Setting up of the perfect police-state in California using the Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT).

The Editor

The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento, California

To the Editor:

Ah, the setting up of the perfect police-state in California and to think that it all began with a supposedly innocent little Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT) that was levied at the gasoline pump starting back in 2004. Your recent page-three story, "Tax on vehicle miles urged," (The Bee, August 8) was shocking and depressing. Besides rewarding the gas-guzzling SUVs, this moronic Schwarzenegger "reform" proposal is awful in almost every aspect. If a computer inside the local gas pump knows your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), then it is a short simple step to completely denying you any more gasoline: "Sorry buster, but you've already driven too many miles this month. No more gas." The next obvious step is to deny you anymore gasoline if you have been deemed to be a supposed "terror threat" or maybe just a liberal Democrat...Trust our multi-Hummer-owning Governor to come up with a plan to eventually destroy our freedom to drive and travel, one of the few remaining freedoms that we still have in California. The Bush Department of Homeland Neofascism couldn't have come up with a better plan themselves. Remember the old Middleeastern proverb about the nose of the camel getting under the edge of the tent...

The California Transportation Commission executive and Transportation Reform Task Force leader Mr. John Borucki complains, "the gas tax is becoming less and less effective." Well, for one thing it is currently set way too low. In many European countries, drivers pay taxes of about $3.00 per gallon of gasoline. Thus, the total current retail price of gasoline in these countries is about $5.00 per gallon. That price in California would certainly provide enough funds to rebuild and upgrade all of our state highways to 21st century standards.

This article claims the the proposed vehicle mileage tax would be "politically tricky." Try politically insane.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

8 August 2004