CBO Sees Benefits in Taxing Motorists Based on Miles Driven

Let me see, the money I earn is taxed. When I bought my car it was taxed. When I put gas in the car it's taxed. And now these assclowns talk about taxing me for the miles I drive? Exactly how many different times do they need to tax the same money?

Maybe if the dumbasses in washington could control their spending we wouldn't be in this mess. It doesn't matter how high taxes are raised or how many different taxes they impose on us, if they spend far more than they take in, it will never be enough. Is this some kind of super secret thing that only a few of us know? You would think with all the "smart" think tank type people they have in washington some one would have caught on to this by now. Don't spend more than you have, it's not rocket surgery.

By Susan Jones - CNSNews

A new Congressional Budget Office study says taxing motorists based on the number of miles they drive would be a fair and "efficient" way to charge motorists for the real cost of using the nation's highways. "Vehicle-miles traveled" taxes (or VMT taxes) also would provide a strong incentive for people to drive less.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea of a VMT tax one month after President Obama took office, but Obama’s spokesman immediately shot it down. "It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters in February 2009.

But that was then.

The CBO study, released this week, says the federal government pays in part for about 25 percent of the nation's highways, which carry about 85 percent of all road traffic. Right now, federal spending on those highways is funded mainly by taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, but those taxes do not raise enough money to support either the current federal spending on highways -- or the higher spending levels that some transportation planners advocate.

The CBO said most of the costs of using a highway, including pavement damage, congestion, accidents, and noise, are tied more closely to the number of miles traveled than to the amount of fuel consumed.

While raising fuel taxes would bring in more money, the CBO notes that a "fundamental" problem would remain: "By themselves, fuel taxes cannot provide a strong incentive for people to avoid overusing highways," the report said.

On the other hand, VMT taxes would have most motorists paying "substantially more than they do now -- perhaps several times more," the report said. "Such a system would maximize the efficiency of highway use by discouraging trips for which costs exceed benefits."

As for the costs of establishing and operating a nationwide VMT tax, CBO admitted that its estimates are "rough." Metering equipment would have to be installed in all cars and trucks, perhaps "under a mandate to vehicle manufacturers."

Read the rest at the link above...

CBO: Jobs Created and Saved By Stimulus Cost At Minimum An Average of $228,055 Each

Other than the part-time, temporary census workers, were there actually any people put to work? obama and his thugs kept talking about all the "saved" jobs, which is a bunch of bullshit. If you were paying attention back when this was in the news everyday, there were lots of tales of how the saved jobs numbers didn't quite add up. There were also lots of stories about fictional jobs, even fictional towns and counties.

We will never know where all that money went. I would imagine that many of obama's friends and supporters are financially much better off than before the stimulus stimulated them. There were tons of unions and government entitites that received huge amounts of money.

Even if there were a few jobs created with the stimulus money, do you think any of them actually pay $228,005? I kind of doubt it, unless they were people added to the government payroll...

By Matt Cover - CNSNews

The jobs created and saved by the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed on Feb. 17, 2009 cost at a minimum an average of $228,055 each, according to data released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

In a report released Wednesday—“Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from October Through December 2010”—the CBO said it now estimates the stimulus law cost a total of $821 billion, up from CBO’s original estimate that the stimulus would cost $787 billion.

In the same report, the CBO estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2010 there were somewhere between 1.3 million and 3.5 million people who were then employed who would not have been had the stimulus not been enacted. “CBO estimates,” says the report, “that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2010: … Increased the number of people employed by between 1.3 million and 3.5 million.”

This estimate seeks to state the net impact the stimulus had on the number of people employed in the United States as a result of the stimulus, taking into account not only the new jobs believed to be created and the existing jobs believed to be killed by the stimulus, but also the existing jobs that were saved that otherwise would have been lost.

The CBO’s estimate that there were 1.3 million to 3.5 million people employed in the fourth quarter of 2010 who would not have been were it not for the stimulus represents a decline from the 1.4 million to 3.6 million people CBO estimated were employed as a result the stimulus during the third quarter of 2010. (See Table 1 in the report.) In fact, CBO now estimates that the apogee of the stimulus’s net job-creating-and-saving power occurred in the third quarter of 2010 when it believes somewhere between 1.4 million and 3.6 million people had jobs they would not have had except for the stimulus.

Thus, the $821 billion cost of the stimulus divided by the maximum of 3.6 million jobs the CBO believes the stimulus may have saved or created equals an average of $228,055 per job.

At the lower end of the CBO’s top job-creating-and-saving estimate for the stimulus—1.4 million jobs—the jobs would cost an average of $586,428 a piece.

In February 2009, when President Obama signed the stimulus law the national unemployment rate was 8.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2011, the national unemployment rate was 9.0 percent.