There's another aspect to this: how is the government to know how many in-state 
miles you've driven? The only feasible way is with GPS trackers in every car, 
something horrifically unconscionable.

Yes, you could go off odometer readings, but those will fail spectacularly on 
two counts: first, miles driven out of state would have to be exempt (and 
possibly paid to other states; second, you'd have people fiddling with the 
odometers even more than they already do. Put simply, the government has no 
business knowing how much I drive where and when.

As far as I'm concerned, the correct near-term solution is to increase gas 
taxes as necessary to make up for the shortfalls with decreased sales. This 
will encourage people to switch to electric all that much faster, and also make 
the gas burners pay for the increased environmental damage they cause.

When enough people are driving electrics that there's no more blood to squeeze 
out of gas taxes, the proper thing to do is to shift funding to the general 
fund. We don't have special revenue streams for things like libraries and 
police and fire and schools and agricultural inspection and park maintenance 
and all the rest, even though almost every such government service inevitably 
only directly benefits a small segment of the population. Rather, we recognize 
that these are parts of an healthy society, and so we all share the costs, even 
for those things we don't personally directly benefit from. Even if you don't 
own a car, you still benefit from well-maintained roadways: delivery vehicles 
can make their deliveries, emergency vehicles can get to you, public 
transportation works for you, and so on. The roads are the perfect example of 
something that society as an whole should pay for, rather than just those who 
happen to be on the roads at any given point in time.

Cheers,

b&
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