Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

713

"How can that be?" you might ask. Didn't California enact a massive $5 billion increase in gas taxes just a couple years ago that was sold as necessary to cover the shortfall needed to fund road repairs? . How can they be short by even more than they were then, despite collecting $5 billion more?

This is why voting for tax increases is always a losing proposition, even when it's sold as a very worthwhile cause.

"How can that be?" you might ask. Didn't California enact a massive $5 billion increase in gas taxes just a couple years ago that was sold as necessary to cover the shortfall needed to fund road repairs? [Yes, they did.](https://archive.is/gFnoF). How can they be short by even more than they were then, despite collecting $5 billion ***more***? This is why voting for tax increases is always a losing proposition, even when it's sold as a very worthwhile cause.

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (13).
[–] • 1 pt

Do Electric Cars dream of Gasoline Tax Sheep?

[–] • 3 pts

No, but they pay an extra $100 registration fee over gasoline vehicles.

[–] • 1 pt

If you assume the average driver runs about 12,000 miles a year in a car that gets 30MPG, that's only about 2/5 of what a gasoline car driver pays. Sounds like the tax needs to be about $250 extra.

[–] • 1 pt

It's a flawed system. Driving a car that gets 20 mpg doesn't wear out the road twice as much as a car that gets 40 mpg, but the 20 mpg car pays twice as much. The proper accounting would be by weight. The reason not a single state in the country funds road repairs this way is because the wear and tear increases exponentially with weight. A fully-loaded tractor trailer does as much damage as 9,000 cars but does not pay $5,625 per gallon. Instead, the government mandates that you pay for for the wear and tear caused by trucks, even ones carrying stuff you're never going to purchase.