Taxing drivers by the mile is idiocy on steroids

If you thought Obamacare was the zenith of Democratic stupidity view this clever proposal. From the Hill:

Rep. Earl Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) on Tuesday reintroduced legislation that would require the government to study the most practical ways of taxing drivers based on how far they drive, in order to help fund federal highway programs.
Blumenauer's bill, H.R. 3638, would set up a Road Usage Fee Pilot Program, which he said would study mileage-based fee systems. He cast his bill as a long-term solution for funding highway programs, and proposed it along with a shorter-term plan to nearly double the gas tax, from 18.4 cents to 33.4 cents per gallon.
"As we extend the gas tax, we must also think about how to replace it with something more sustainable," Blumenauer said Tuesday. "The best candidate would be the vehicle mile traveled fee being explored by pilot projects in Oregon and implemented there on a voluntary basis next year."
He said the bill would help answer questions about "how best to implement a vehicle miles traveled [VMT] system," and said it "looks to the future and helps provide a more stable funding base for the next one hundred years."
(D-Ore.) on Tuesday reintroduced legislation that would require the government to study the most practical ways of taxing drivers based on how far they drive, in order to help fund federal highway programs.
Blumenauer's bill, H.R. 3638, would set up a Road Usage Fee Pilot Program, which he said would study mileage-based fee systems. He cast his bill as a long-term solution for funding highway programs, and proposed it along with a shorter-term plan to nearly double the gas tax, from 18.4 cents to 33.4 cents per gallon.
"As we extend the gas tax, we must also think about how to replace it with something more sustainable," Blumenauer said Tuesday. "The best candidate would be the vehicle mile traveled fee being explored by pilot projects in Oregon and implemented there on a voluntary basis next year."
He said the bill would help answer questions about "how best to implement a vehicle miles traveled [VMT] system," and said it "looks to the future and helps provide a more stable funding base for the next one hundred years."

First, it's merely a personal prejudice but I feel that anyone using the adjective "sustainable" should have molten lead poured down his throat to serve notice that the public will no longer accept such silly nonsense. Banality is not a virtue and when politicians learn to speak intelligent English without pretension maybe the public may begin to take them seriously.
As to the the Congressman's proposal to tax by the mile, it is idiotically inefficient. The federal gasoline tax is presently administered with a scant minimum of cost to either the government or the consumer / taxpayer. Abuse of the program hardly exists. Under this proposal the motorist would, I presume, report his odometer reading at some regular interval and and remit payment. Good luck on that. Americans are loath to pay taxes and especially loath to write checks to pay taxes. The reason the public tolerates excise taxes is because they are hidden but making them visible will only lead to resentment and opposition. One suspects that at some point Blumenauer would want to mandate some go to hell black box that one would tamper with only under a penalty of a 5 year prison term, equipped with a 4G interface that would dutifully tell the motorist's bank to send X dollars post haste. Writing such a program would be child's play for a tech savvy company such as CGI.
It's not about the money. This is the liberal mind at work. It is about making taxation onerous on the many so they will cultivate a proper fear of jackasses like Blumenauer. It's about pushing people around.
While researching the topic I stumbled across this graphic by Doug Short of The Business Insider. This chart was created using data from the Department of Transportation.

Viewing the chart does not indicate that more miles will be driven in the future. Off hand I would say it may have been a good idea 40 years ago but when oil prices started to surge in 2007 the number of miles driven declined. Would the Congressman's sustainable tax be producing more revenue today than it did in 2006? Before any taxes are raised the people in Washington need to explain why a nation that is driving less should be paying more for road building and repairs.