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Motor fuel tax is the state’s leading source of transportation funding and makes up 52 percent of Illinois’ total transportation revenue and 82 percent of its contributions to the federal highway trust fund. The report’s main policy recommendation is implementing a vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, fee - an idea previously floated by Gov. JB Pritzker during his initial gubernatorial campaign in 2018.
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
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If the VMT fee becomes a reality, will the toll road fees go away? The IL pols know the taxpayer has an extremely high threshold of pain, so we’ll probably have both sets of fees in place.
Wouldn’t it be easier and less intrusive to just add a tax on the electricity purchased at recharging stations, like the fuel tax added at the pump now? Why go through the trouble of collecting reports on Vehicle Miles Travelled, unless they want that information, along with tax revenue?
They will be able to create another bureau filled with pals and relatives with high paying jobs, benefits and pensions all of course appointed by JB or some other pol who is owed a favor.
Will drivers of ICE vehicles have to pay the taxes at pump and then the mileage based fee so the democrats can stick it in our behinds another time? Asking for a friend.
Let’s do something immediately do demonstrate virtue. Real-world fallout happens later. Sensible forward-looking advice has no place and no traction in the legislative or executive branches (and little enough in an elected judiciary). Self-indulgent, not self-governed.
Why? Creates more government jobs.
And then they can charge tax at the pump AND a VMT tax. Woo-woo!
Adding a tax at the charging stations would end up benefiting many EV owners who have or will have upgraded electrical systems in their homes to charge their vehicles. That lost tax revenue at the charging stations would result in even higher gas taxes to offset the loss.
And would be deemed discriminatory to apartment dwellers.