Of particular interest to me is the vigor with which opponents of the mileage-based road fee pursue their efforts to block its implementation. In The Freedom Caucus Doesn’t Understand that the Mileage-Based Road Fee is “PRO-Freedom,” Not the Opposite, I explained why efforts by Freedom Caucus members to block enactment of the mileage-based road fee in Arizona were unwise. The proposal “would ban government entities from tracking vehicle miles traveled by its citizens, bar taxes based on miles traveled and would stop government bodies from attempting to limit vehicle miles traveled in any way.” The proposal was blocked, was reintroduced, and now, has become law in Arizona thanks to 51 percent of voters approving an amendment to the state Constitution that “Prohibits taxes or fees based on vehicle miles traveled and laws monitoring or limiting vehicle miles traveled without consent.”
When I wrote my commentary about the Arizona proposal two years ago, I wrote
For the moment, the good news is that their efforts have been, at least temporarily, blocked. The bad news is that they intend to reintroduce the bill, and I suspect they will continue pounding this agenda item until the populace acquires sufficient understand of mileage-based road fees and makes it clear that the prohibition attempt is pointless.How wrong I was. Very wrong. I assumed that enough people in Arizona would figure out that sticking with the existing liquid fuels tax would generate long-term adverse consequences. I did not give enough credit to the propaganda machine operated by the opponents of the mileage-based road fee and the size of the Arizona population that succumbed to it. That the proposition passed narrowly, 50.99 percent to 49.01 percent, is no comfort. Out of a total of 2,414170 voters, had a mere 23,989 voters who voted for the proposition voted against it, Arizona drivers would face a much better driving future.
When I refer to the opponents engaging in the dissemination of propaganda, I am being tactful. Consider that the opponents characterize the mileage-based road fee as a "looming threat to limit how much people drive." That is flat out untrue. The mileage-based road fee applies a rate to the miles that are driven, whether a person drives 5,000, 50,000, or 500,000 miles a year. Any attempt to defend this this untrue claim, by arguing that "the fee increases the more you drive so it discourages driving" is a sleight-of-hand because that argument also applies to the existing liquid fuels tax because the more a person drives the more fuel they use and thus the more liquid fuels tax they pay. In other words, a shift from a liquid fuels tax to a mileage-based road fee has no impact whatsoever on how many miles an Arizona driver can, or is permitted to, drive.
I repeat what I wrote in 2024:
What these Freedom Caucus zealots fail to understand are the facts underlying the need for mileage-based road fees and how those fees fit into existing conditions. Arizona drivers already pay for the miles they travel, through an 18-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, which is, in effect, a tax on miles driven though it varies from driver to driver based on the fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Opponents of the mileage-based road fee don’t understand this, mostly because they are peppered with misinformation. Arizona, like other states and the federal government, faces decreased collections from fuel taxes because of fuel efficiency gains and increasing numbers of electric vehicles on the roads. The mileage-based road fee rebalances the burden of paying for necessary highway, bridge, and tunnel maintenance and repairs.So why do I characterize this allegedly "pro freedom" amendment to the Arizona Constitution as something that limits freedom? It's because the mileage-based road fee protects the freedom to drive. Of what use is freedom to drive if the roads are crumbling, the tunnels are collapsing, and the bridges are falling down? Of what use is freedom to drive if driving brings tire blowouts, broken suspensions, interrupted journeys, injuries, and death? If Arizona wants to keep its driving infrastructure safe and well-maintained, it will need to raise its liquid fuels taxes. Oh, how happy the Freedom Caucus will be when it learns that the less expensive and more equitable approach would have been to shift from liquid fuels taxes to the mileage-based road fee.[Arizona requires that during vehicle safety inspections, the inspecting mechanic record the vehicle's odometer reading.] So much for boo-hooing about the state knowing how many miles a vehicle has been driven. It is also important to note that the mileage-based road fee, like the state vehicle inspection requirement, reflects how many miles a vehicle is driven and not how many miles any specific driver has driven, a distinction that seems to have eluded the thinking process of the Freedom Caucus.
Reader Morris alerted me to the passage of the Arizona proposition. He asked me, "Why do you think so many Arizona voters believe that the mileage based road fee is "Anti-Freedom"? The short answer is fear. The Freedom Caucus painted the mileage-based road fee in fear, a fear that is unfounded and that does not exist, but that was expressed by opponents of the mileage-based road fee as a "it will limit how many miles you are allowed to drive" trope. This use of fear as voter motivation is not different from encouraging fear of the color of another person's eyes, fear of another person's shoe size, fear of the monsters under the bed, fear of the this, that, and the next thing. It works because people let their amygdala push aside their prefrontal cortex. They don't have the time, the patience, the skill set, or the incentive to do research, to read, to listen, to think, to analyze, and to figure out how the mileage-based road fee works. Sad.
