What are the odds that this will pass?
 

The highway driving fee, or automobile usage tax, or whatever they end up calling this assinine scam!
Imagine that on top of paying an excise tax, a sales tax and an annual registration tax on your vehicle, and a gas tax you may be forced to pay 1 cent a mile to drive in this pisshole state!!!
This new Democratic fee scam is "supposed" to help fund the Green Line extension (the new Big Dig screwjob) but we all know if they get this to pass it will just end up in someone's pockets or some whacko wet-dream project on some politician's posh summer home.

Bottom line is that the wonderful state of mAssachusetts is looking to make us the laughing stock of the country. More so than we are now. Heck, all we need is to be the first state to enact Obama's assinine immigration plan, and we should beat out California as the most screwed up place to live in the USA!

My old Ford f350 has 350K on it....that would be $3500 more stolen.

The scary part will be how they keep track of where, how far and when you drive.
Had enough yet???

Yearly inspections report the mileage to the registry. Your insurance company has already has access to this data and so may the tax collector.
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What about the miles put on in other states. We are going to have to hire more gov workers to sort this out. :rotf2:

You haven't heard of the odometer that has 50 memory locations used to store the mileage of each state.
There will be a gps that triggers the mileage counter as you enter that specific state. Afterwards the yearly inspection will determine the miles for each state. There will be a tax rate for miles driven in each state that will be billed to you.
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I have to start looking at ways to turn back the odometer

Easily detected.

not if it isn't your car

Interestingly enough, the gauges on the Misses car are screwed up. After driving for 5-10 minutes, the speedometer stops working and the odometer freezes.

Anyway, this is Uncle Scams way of combating rising fuel economy standards. There have been grumblings about the feds requiring a GPS to be installed in every vehicle that tracks mileage (yeah I'm sure that's all it tracks) and is then read by a scanner at gas stations. You pay for your fuel *plus* your mileage surcharge. It's going to happen eventually, and when it does, we'll see even more blatant, illegal intrusion into our Right to Privacy.

If you think Mass is effed up move to RI and then maybe I might have some sympathy for your plight.

We here in RI by far have easily the most stupid human being to ever live be elected to the seat of Governor(or for that matter anything electable).This is a man who so far has done zero other than try to fight for the life of some scumbag who killed a man in broad daylight,scattering his brains all over a sidewalk outside a Woonsocket bank.Oh and he wants it called a Holiday Tree and he wants to tax EVERYTHING.And as a working man don't even let me get into bridge tolling.

Cry me a river.Spend a year or two here in RI and you'll be screaming to move back to Mass.

This might be the reason all the electric cars have been taken off the road. NO GAS TAX

Just because RI is a trash heap doesn't mean we in MA can't complain about the ever-increasing taxes and regulations this state pushes through. Also, anyone who moves to RI should have their head checked. If you hate it so much, move.

What happens when I put fuel in my boat at that same gas station?
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Same can be said about MA...or any state you live in.

We have a great Interstate Highway system in this country....if people hate the state they live in they can always use it to leave....

Holy crap Johnny was that really called for?Did I ever say you could not complain?

If I could afford to move I would but I'm all growed-up with a mortgage,a family and all the bills that go with it.Would you move with 7 more years on your mortgage?

Think before you speak kid.

don't forget the use tax and NOW the new bridge WILL have a toll

I keep hearing grumblings about tolls coming back on Mt. Hope Bridge too. Then we'll really be living on an Island...

Cry me a river old man.

Exactly the response I thought I would get.

Youth knows everything and then one day you get some responsibility and before you know you're 40+ and you then realize you didn't know jack squat in your youth.

Wait until you have a kid and you'll really get it,or even more so take on someone else's kid!Then you buy a house and then have 30yrs of mortgage bills.College for the kid...can't forget that!All that and the stupid bills like red garbage bags and a hundred other taxes that workers/homeowners have to deal with.

Johnny and I mean this very seriously...until you actually have some real world experience stop giving advice and opinions on subjects you have ZERO experience with.But that will never happen because I keep forgetting you already know everything and have life figured out already.

Forgot a responsibility,how about taking care of those sick and dying parents?That'll a real treat for you but I'm sure you already know what to do.

I'll cry you no river.I lived it and my crying has already been done.

you have achieved wisdom when
you realize you know nothing at all.

You talk like you have any clue about me and my life.

meh...

I certainly don't have it all figured out and learn more and more every day. I make mistakes every single day and will continue to do so until they put me in the ground. However, someone that thinks that their entitled and automatically correct just because they're a bit older certainly isn't the person for anyone to learn it from.

I'm not the only one that could demonstrate a bit more humility and to be knocked down a rung or two. I may not be as "old and wise" as you are, but I sure am glad that I'm not half as pissy.

Back on Subject...

I believe the Masterminds in the Peoples Republic of MA proposed it and it will somehow get slipped in in the Democratic Republic of Rhode Island as a test case for the rest of the New England. That is if they can ram it down our throats as an environment saver when in reality it is another way to confiscate the fruits of the hard work we do.

You're that guy that yells fire then cries freedom of speech aren't you?

it'll be nationwide soon because the Cartels have eliminated the middlemen along the southwestern borders...for more profit

and are now personally driving huge loads of kilos of cocaine to all USA cities.

Some of the buyers are making millions per week. With that kind of "scratch" they can purchase any HEAVY weaponry they feel like.

Nope. I'm the guy that doesn't like big brother putting GPS tracking on my car and being able to conduct warrant-less surveillance on my every move.

No one has the freedom to incite panic by yelling fire in a crowded room.

Big brother is who said you could drive in the first place.

He also says how fast you can drive, what roads you can drive on, and that your car needs to meet certain safety standards too.

Where's the outcry?

Apples to oranges. All of those examples are just as inapplicable as your last one.

Reasonable people understand that Constitutional freedom isn't defined by doing whatever the hell you want without regard to the cost on others - such as driving 100MPH through a school zone.

Where are cars in the constitution again? I can't seem to find that section.

The 9th Amendment, 3rd and 4th and 5th in the Bill of Rights are relevent to this discussion.

I suppose you can make a 10" bass legal right? :rotf2:

So true, but on the journey, if you don't stand for Something
you'll fall for Anything.

Drugs are bad mkay?

I agree, I have ice cubes in my fridge that have more working brain cells than your govenor has.

General police powers are reserved to the States and the people in the Consitution. The tenth ammendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If States or localites wish to impose speed limits on public roads it is in their power to do so.

It is not necessary for everything, including cars, or horses, or ships, or airplanes to actually be mentioned in the Constitution in order for Federal, State, or local government to regulate those things. What is necessary for regulation is the purview granted by the enumerated powers. The scope of those powers is broad enough to include things unknown to the framers. What that scope does not include is reserved to the States and the people.

The restriction on first ammendment free speech was begun by that opinion of Holmes. In actuallity, yelling fire, even falsely, should not reasonably, in itself, be expected to incite panic. The intent might be to warn of danger, or to be a prank or even to incite panic. The responsibility lies in those who hear to act accordingly, not in the person yelling. If we reasonably expect people to act like lemmings, then I can see the necessity of Big Brother protecting us from ourselves, and intruding on every aspect of our lives, including how we speak. Further, shouting ANYTHING in a crowded theater is a matter of property rights more than a matter of free speech. The owners of the property have the right to restrict any disruptive behavior on their premises and should not be a matter of government interference. If the violater does not comply with the wishes of the property owner, the police can be asked to intervene.

Further restrictions on free speech have followed, such as hate speech. etc. What is even more ominous is a fairly new concept in SCOTUS jurisprudence, or at least a new evolution and application of it--Government Speech. The notion that government itself can take part in speech and not be restricted and that such speech is supreme over private speech when the two conflict.

You DO realize most car manufacturers are putting black boxes in their cars already right?

And infact, in 2015 they're mandatory!

Oh noes!

Hate To Break It To You, But Your Car Likely Has A Black Box 'Spying' On You Already - Forbes

(This is the part where Raven talks about the CIA watching him at home)

So far, Congress does not allow warrantless searches of the "black boxes" unless the owner of the vehicle gives permission. And they seem to record small bits of time before and after a crash, not, as JohnnyD fears, "my every move." If this is part of the "slippery slope" to eventually install technology that did follow your every move, would that be OK with you? Right now it's a safety issue and can be used to determine fault in accidents that lead to court trials. I don't know which part of the Constitution the fedgov used or abused to assert the power to legislate the mandatory installation of EDR's--probably the commerce clause because the lack of the device would somehow" affect interstate commerce." States more clearly have constitutional power to mandate EDR's, and they are more responsible to the wishes of their constituants. Most people would probably support EDR's for safety reasons and with limited recording ability directly related to crashes and with the provision that warrants are required to view the device. Most might vote down mandates that tracked their every move. The fedgov, witness the HCB, have acquired more power to override constitutional limitations, and could mandate the tracking of every move. Another 911 type incident might be just the ticket for an excuse to do so. Probably not.

Does that make it right? Ad some substance to your posts!

That seems to be a pattern for some--attempts to lampoon rather than discuss, which sort of defeats the purpose of a forum. Ridicule is fine if there is added substance.

I suspect that, to some degree, the matter of right and wrong for a "progressive" is relative. A political progressive would lean toward the belief that what the central government and its agencies do IS right. The whole purpose of the progressive movement was, and seemingly still is, the creation of an all-powerful benevolent government which would free its people from fear and want, thus liberating them to be whatever they desire and their potential allows. A discussion of the inherent contradictions in such a system and philosophy of government is a priori moot for progressives since that government would be comprised of the experts that know more and better than the people who merely are required to enjoy the freedom of their ignorance and the positive actions of their caretaker government. Things like musty old constitutions are too rigid and stand in the way of the progress toward the more perfectly equitable and just society. Daily, new problems that old constitutions could not foresee must be solved in new ways and can only be done by an unhampered bureaucracy which can more efficiently and expertly accomplish needed changes for a large and diverse populace. That all this truly resembles Woodrow Wilson's vision of a society resembling a beehive, and that it clusters the people into groups of dependents rather than the self-actuating individuals the structure purports to produce, and that it eliminates the friction necessary to create the pearl, and that it is actually, contrary to the progressive worship of evolution, anti-evolutionary and drifts toward the stagnancy of centalized control, and that the experience of history has shown time and again that an all-powerful government is not only tyrannical, but that the wish for a benevolent form of such government leads not to paradise, but to the diminution of the human spirit that separates us from the beehives and ant hills, that all these and more are irrelevant to progressives demonstrates that the unparalleled efficiencey which allows a centralized bureacracy with unlimited power to produce thousands of regulations per year makes such a system "right" compared to a cumbersome federal system bridled by the limitations of an unbending constitution.

And the progressive mind does not accept that immutable law garantees what it purports. It does not even recognize that its religion of science requires laws that don't change merely on whim or opinion, but must be based on evidence. The Constitution was written as a garantee of individual liberty and a bulwark against government tyranny. It was not meant to live and breath, for laws cannot be living organisms or they would be no more than the organisms to which they applied. And would be subject to the same ultimate fate of death and extinction. Even though experience and evidence has shown that individual liberty is harsh, difficult, demanding, it has also shown that subjection to central power is even more so, though attractive at first with utopian promises. Rather than adhere to the garantees of the Constitution, more and more are attracted to the promise of benevolence and the Constitution be damned. I can't fathom Justice Roberts decision--there is clearly no provision in the Constitution for the government to tax inactivity as well, which he recognized, as no provision to regulate inactivity through the commerce clause. Perhaps he has looked at the Constitution, looked at the "need" for "health care reform," and basically decided to tear up the Constitution and go with government's good intentions. He, like most other progressive judges, know that as the Constitution was written and intended it did not allow, but expressly forbade, in its enumerated limitations, central government hegemony over the individual. I can't be sure, but the unwillingness of those on this forum to discuss such matters indicates to me that such hegemony is OK.

And do those Black Boxes have GPS in them that track your every move? From my understanding of the current black boxes, they can only be legally accessed to investigate a potential crime or car accident.

Hey, since you have no issues with Big Brother spying on you, I'm sure you wouldn't mind if the police showed up and rummaged through your house to make sure you don't have anything illegal. I mean, if you aren't doing anything wrong, why would you have any reason to refuse them unrestricted access to your house?