Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

The administration is hard at work searching for ways to reverse any “Bin Laden bumps” in the polls, and at this pace it won’t take long:

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

The plan is a part of the administration’s “Transportation Opportunities Act,” an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.

This follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

The CBO report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who has proposed taxing cars by the mile as a way to increase federal highway revenues.

We already do get taxed based on how many miles we drive — it’s called the per gallon gas tax — but obviously that’s just not enough.

New taxes are now being called “opportunities” in that more people than ever will have the opportunity to be on unemployment.

And who’s not up for the creation of yet another new government office to handle this?

Obama’s proposal seems to follow up on that idea in section 2218 of the draft bill. That section would create, within the Federal Highway Administration, a Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office.
[...]
The new office would be funded a total of $200 million through FY 2017 for the project.

The item above was linked on Drudge right next to this Bloomberg story: Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Jump Due to Anomolies

Forget about gas and mileage taxes — the Obama administration should consider a tax on the media every time they use the word “unexpectedly” to describe predictable jobs data that can be nothing but bad news in an era where economic woes are solved with new taxes, fees, and attempts to reduce the debt via wild spending binges.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe