Delaware's population estimate from the census bureau is 873,092 on July 1, 2008, up from 783,595 on April 1, 2000, an increase of 89,497 or 11.4%. By comparison, my own estimate a couple months earlier was slightly higher, 876,688. Either way, I was pretty close.
So, Delaware's population of 873,092 in July 2008 remains well under 1 million. Now if only each of those people paid $1000 each in taxes and we'd have no budget problems.
Speaking of budget problems, I saw in the paper the other day that the state is again toying with various tax ideas, and threw out the fact that Oregon is experimenting with a mileage tax.
I tend to agree that this sort of approach, while outside of the box, is a bad idea, and many of the comments in this article explain why Delaware should not move in this direction. Apparently, Oregon is also rethinking this, and hopefully Delaware doesn't jump blindly into the foray just to realize how explosively bad this idea is.
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2 comments:
Why is this such a bad idea? I'm not arguing (yet) but I want to understand what your objections to a mileage tax actually would be.
On one level, I can see that such a plan would more closely track to an individual's use of the public resource -- in this case the roads -- that is meant to be supported by the tax.
Gas taxes were ever only a weak stand-in for taxing the use of roads.
I'll try and give this some more thought, but my initial objections deal mainly with the impracticability of implementing such a tax. The easiest way would be to simply re-up the annual/biannual registration fee to some percentage with an over-charge for some mileage amount. I'm not sure this is a good approach because it would only catch those Delaware registered drivers, and I think the reaction to another increase (and likely a significant one) would be pretty negative.
A gas tax would effectively accomplish the same thing and cover anyone who drives in the state and has to stop for gas. The counter to this tax, however, is that it's tough to say where that tax goes other than to the general fund. If some percentage of it was allocated to DNREC (and perhaps it already is), then that may be more of a reason to support it.
I think probably the best way to cover it, at least in a way that would level the playing field for residents (and somehow work in conjunction with some sort of additional gas tax) would be to figure out a way to tax the auto insurance companies in such a way that they wouldn't pass the increased cost onto the consumer. This way it would make those unsafe drivers pay more, and reward those with a better driving record. You could also increase the percentage of traffic fines collected, which could probably up revenues significantly without actually increasing the fines.
Interestingly, they could figure out a way to tax developments more where it comes to road use, easements and energy consumption. I'm not sure how the developers garnished such a powerful lobby in this state, but maybe the new governor will start implementing some needed change in that regard. We'll see.
What do you think is a better way of solving the half trillion dollar deficit?
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