I'm with the government. I'm here to tax, um......help you.

Some busybodies cannot leave well enough alone. Congress is addicted to our money. Congressmen are addicted to "fixing" what is not broken. Many want to force us into certain social pathway because they think its important.

Now, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) Oregon, wants to spend our money so that the government can spy on us. He wants to spend millions of dollars developing a system that tracks every motorist in America in order to tax their mileage. Apparently, he hasn't heard about the odometer yet. He needs to also track WHERE we're driving.

US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system. The “Road User Fee Pilot Project” would be administered by the US Treasury Department. This agency in turn would issue millions in taxpayer-backed grants to well-connected commercial manufacturers of tolling equipment to help develop the required technology. Within eighteen months of the measure’s passage, the department would file an initial report outlining the best methods for adopting the new federal transportation tax.

“Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country,” Blumenauer said in a statement on the bill’s introduction. “A VMT system can better assess fees based on use of our roads and bridges, as well as during times of peak congestion, than a fee based on fuel consumption. It is time to get creative and find smart ways to rebuild and renew America’s deteriorating infrastructure.”

Of course, this would be on top of the gas tax. And the technology used to track which roads and bridges are most used, wouldn't EVER be used by law enforcement, oh no.... Or be used by insurance companies to track individual driving habits.

The government controls ONSTAR. This bill would track all motorists. The government wants to control your health care. The government wants all medical records online and wants access to them. The government has shown interest in having the IRS be involved in your health care decisions and now your driving decisions. The insurance companies would love to have all this information. And if the government is running health care.......it won't matter. Because the government will have access to all of it.

Tell me that I'm wrong that these ideas would not be abused. Tell me that I'm wrong in that these programs would, eventually, piece meal, be implemented so that more and more restrictions would be put into place. All in the name of saving taxpayer money or saving the children, of course. Politicians can't help themselves. Everything they do is a "good idea at the time" in their eyes. THEY are not affected by any of this. They have to be seen as doing something, anything.....

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

cross posted at RedState