Mileage tax punishes
innocent cars
On March 13, 2019 West Hawaii Today reported that the Hawaii Department of Transportation, HDOT, will hold public meetings in April.
The purpose of the meetings is to gather public input on a concept to replace the current Hawaii fuel taxes. For cars the concept involves taxation based on miles driven instead of gasoline purchased at the pumps.
HDOT will present information on the need and rationale to use road usage miles as the basis for taxation. The intent of their strategy is to develop a reliable steady stream of revenue to sustain a road repair and maintenance budget. Electric cars don’t use gas. Hybrid cars use less. Thus, consumption of gas decreases. So would the revenue. People love to drive. HDOT wants to tax the miles from the odometer readings. Doing that equitably for all vehicle taxpayers would be an administrative and legislative challenge.
For me, my small car would do little wear and tear damage to the road pavement.
For bigger vehicles they do more wear and tear damage to the roads.
Their impacts are greater, so it makes sense that they should bear a greater responsibility for repair and maintenance. Logic would say they should pay more. Heavy vehicle owners would want to know how much more.
The crux of challenge to HDOT is to use their professional knowledge of engineering to come up with durable roads. Another challenge is using their computational and analytical skills to arrive at an assessment that makes sense. Cars need fuel to move on highways. Either this or that choice is not intellectual.
By simply imposing a decree is a lazy choice. HDOT can identify the crucial parameters. One is fuel. Another is users of the road. That includes bicycles and bicyclists. The accommodation for bicycle lanes requires a wider multi-modal roadway width including striping and signing. Shared use implies sharing responsibilities and cost.
A smart solution is neither gas tax nor mileage tax only, but a combination of both.
HDOT and the Legislature can be comprehensive and wise.
Harold Murata
Kealakekua
Trump keeping friends and enemies equally close
Can you imagine the uproar which would have followed if Barack Obama had lifted sanctions on North Korea the day after his Treasury Department, at the urging of national security officials, had imposed them?
And if he further explained he did this as a personal favor to his good friend, Kim Jong Un, a man who belongs in the pantheon of the most brutal and vicious dictators the world has seen in the past 100 years, right up there with Hitler and Stalin?
Today, however, the silence from congressional Republicans is deafening. Shame on them. Trump needs to be judged by the friends he keeps: Putin, Kim, Mohammad bin Salman. Reagan never called the Russian dictators his friends; nor did Nixon refer to Chinese leadership in those terms when he opened the door to diplomatic relations.
Arne Werchick
Kailua-Kona
