Highway Robbery: Know What the Government is Planning for our Roads and Highways

America's transportation Nazis are planning a whole lot more misery than having TSA's "touchy feely" goons molest American families and their children.  America's roads and highways are about to be churned into virtual police states with electronic surveillance, GPS mandated in every vehicle and the government's ability to disable anybody's vehicle while monitoring your every move. 

 Every American should be absolutely terrified that our roads and highways are about to be churned into Nazi style police state roadways and that taxpayer funded technology will facilitate this transition as vehicles and roads are being reconfigured for constant surveillance and monitoring.  No longer is America the land of “See the USA in your Chevrolet” but we are turning into “May the Force of Big Brother be With You Wherever You Go in Your Government Motors Surveillance Vehicle”.

New meaning for "Road Tax"

By Henry Lamb, July 13, 2009

 Sara was late for work.  The alarm clock didn't alarm, the kids were unusually slow getting ready for school, and nothing went right.   She finally got to her car – a brand new 2020 Chevy Adventure.  She touched the finger-print secured start button.  Nothing.  It wouldn't start.  She touched it again.  Nothing.  Furious, she banged the steering wheel with her fist.  Then she noticed the paper hanging from the receipt printer on the dash.

"Your designated visa account rejected your Road Use Tax in the amount of $87.32 for the month of June, 2020.  You must insert a valid account card to activate your automobile."

It's coming.  With a $16 million grant from the federal government, the University of Iowa is developing a Global Positioning Satellite system that can measure the mileage, apply a variable tax rate that will increase during rush hours, and in high-traffic areas, calculate the total, charge a designated account card, and shut down your automobile if unpaid when due.    Some 2700 automobiles in five states will be used in the test.

 The system has been under development for more than a decade.  The concept was proven in a similar, but smaller test in Oregon two years ago.  The new tax system is being designed to replace the outdated by-the-gallon tax.   Government mandated higher mileage requirements results in less tax revenue for all governments.  Hybrid and all-electric cars contribute little or nothing to road tax revenues.

 The new by-the-mile tax system will give government much more than a new tax collection mechanism; it will give government much greater control over everyone. 

 The new GM – Government Motors – can install this new system in all of its vehicles.  All that's needed is an instruction from the car-czar.  Auto makers that have not yet been taken over by the government can be required to install the system quite easily, by regulation or legislation.  With such a system in every vehicle, the government can have virtual control over the population.

Purchase of a vehicle will give the government a database containing the name and residence location of every automobile owner.  Since the system has the ability to record and track the geographic location of the vehicle at every moment of the day or night – only for the purpose of applying the correct tax rate, of course – government can know where your vehicle is at any moment.

 Frightened yet?  This is not hocus-pocus conspiracy-theory nonsense.  The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission has unanimously endorsed the scheme. 

 Source:  http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/hlamb/2009/hl_07131.shtml

 In January 2008, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released a study recommending a 40 cent increase in the Federal gas tax as well as a 60 cent increase in state gas taxes.  But the commission’s study goes even further:

The study also calls for a new federal bureaucracy to centralize transportation decision making, new limitations on states’ abilities to attract private sector investments and a first of its kind federal tax on all public transportation and intercity passenger rail tickets.

It’s all about vastly increasing federal control of all transportation and tax, tax, tax.

According to Mary Peters, the Bush Transportation Secretary, the Federal government squanders about 40% of our Federal gas tax dollars and she admitted on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS) that only about 60% of the gas tax is funneled into roads and bridges.   What happens to our gas tax dollars?  Every year tens of billions of our gas tax dollars are siphoned off by Congress in a transportation bill to fund pork and other slop.

The Tax Foundation reported that “Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues…”

Every American can categorically be assured that $1.34 trillion was not spent on our bridges and highways.  So now the government’s solution for pissing away our gas tax dollars is to increase the gas tax from 18.4 cents a gallon to 40 cents a gallon?   Americans can also be assured that any new gas tax revenues won’t be spent on bridges and roads either.  If anything, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters probably low balled the waste but assuming she’s reasonably accurate, 40% of $1.34 trillion is $536,000,000 that just managed to get pissed away in the congressional corruption machine.   That kind of money would undoubted build a lot of bridges and highways.  But making America’s bridges and highways safe for Americans and their families has never been a congressional priority.

But there are a lot of other moving parts to the transportation issue besides squandering hundreds of billions in gas taxes.  Horrifyingly, many draconian Nazi styled transportation schemes are being seriously considered and even outright implemented and these intrusions into our pocketbooks and privacy should inspire sheer terror in the hearts and minds of freedom living citizens everywhere.  These schemes involved building automobiles with GPS transponders that track your every move on the highways while churning America’s highways into a virtual electronic police state.

An article titled “Feds plan to track every car, Obscure agency working on technology to monitor all vehicles” is quoted as follows:

Quote: A little-known federal agency is planning a new monitoring program by which the government would track every car on the road by using onboard transceivers.

The agency, the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, is part of the Department of Transportation. According to an extensive report in the Charlotte, N.C., Creative Loafing, the agency doesn't respond to public inquiries about its activity.

According to the report, cutting-edge tracking technology will be used by government transportation management centers to monitor every aspect of transportation. Under the plan, not only will movement be monitored but it also will be archived in massive databases for future use.

The paper reports a group of car manufacturers, technology companies and government interests have worked toward implementing the project for 13 years.

States the Creative Loafing report:

"The only way for people to evade the national transportation tracking system they're creating will be to travel on foot. Drive your car, and your every movement could be recorded and archived…..

Critics believe the program will be used to line the pockets of business interests that stand to gain from the sale of needed technology and that the government will use the data collected to tax drivers on their driving habits.

Though the program has ominous privacy implications, Creative Loafing reports none of the privacy-rights organizations it contacted were aware of the government's plans.

The report states that more than $4 billion in federal tax dollars has already been spent to lay the foundation for the system, which will use GPS technology and other methods to monitor Americans' movements.

The plan includes transceivers, or "onboard units," that will transmit data from each car to the system, the first models of which are expected to be unveiled next spring. By 2010, the paper reported, automakers hope to start installing them in cars. The goal is to equip 57 million vehicles by 2015….

At least one proponent of the plan is actually using the term "Orwellian" to describe it.

At a workshop for industry and government leaders last year, the Charlotte paper reports, John Worthington, president and CEO of TransCore – one of the companies currently under contract to develop the onboard units for cars – described the system as "kind of an Orwellian all-singing, all-dancing collector/aggregator/disseminator of transportation information."

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/071004trackeverycar.htm

Maybe now we know where big chunks of our gas tax dollars are going!  There are so many obscure federal agencies these days that it’s nearly impossible to track their funding and activities without the resources of a well funded think tank. 

Of course, the government will attempt to sell a hugely expensive transportation police state to the American sheeple by invoking the issues of public safety and national security!!!  All of these things are being done quietly and mainstream media just refuses to report on these draconian measures. 

But it gets even worse.

The transportation costs to Americans driving on roads that they already bought and paid for with their tax dollars are about to explode:

A group of think tanks, businesses, and three federal agencies recently published a report, called Moving Cooler, proposing to charge a 5 cent per mile toll to access ALL federal interstates and a 65 cent per mile toll to access ALL 125 metro cities across America. Someone has clearly lost their marbles to put such a proposal in writing.

Not only is this a massive DOUBLE TAX to charge taxpayers to use what we’ve already built and paid for, it’s a recipe for total economic collapse! Few would be able to afford to get to work, and it would bring freedom to travel to a screeching halt.

Even IF all workers and business owners wanted to take mass transit to work, our public transportation system couldn’t handle it, so that leaves millions forced to pay $26 a day in new taxes to get to work (for a 20 mile commute), which for many means they literally can’t afford to get to work.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-17954-San-Antonio-Transportation-Policy-Examiner~y2009m8d22-Theyre-comin-after-your-walletReport-proposes-65-cents-a-mile-toll-to-access-ALL-US-cities?cid=examiner-email

65 cents a mile just to drive!!  And on top of the gas tax to boot – if this isn’t highway robbery I don’t know what is. 

Another draconian scheme being hatched is the Vehicles Miles Tax (VMT) and GPS systems are being designed to tax us according to the number of miles we drive.  According to CNSnews.com “The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary road, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off peak-hours.  The device would tally how much tax motorists owned depending upon their road use.  Motorists would pay the amount owned when it was downloaded, probably at gas stations at first”.

For those who consider highway and road transportation a mundane issue, it’s time to take off the blinders and understand what is being planned and implemented.