President Obama Says No to Tax Per Miles Driven

Last week I wrote about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s idea about imposing a federal tax on the American citizens for how many miles they drive. Later that day President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that President Obama supported this idea.

Certainly this is good news for the citizens of America but it does leave us with several questions.

The questions that come to mind are, why would Roy LaHood make a statement saying that a tax on miles driven should be looked into if he knew that President Obama opposed it? Did he know that the president opposed it? Is there miscommunication in the Obama administration? Was there a reason why this idea was leaked? Does Barack Obama truly oppose this tax?

All of these questions are linked and I think that they can be answered together. I think it is entirely likely that President Obama is floating out these trial balloons to see what the public reaction is to these types of proposals. He has his Transportation Secretary leak out the idea of a miles driven tax to see what the reaction is to it. With the public outcry against this idea he is then able to backtrack and deny that he was really looking into this tax. He gets the best of both words.

President Obama and his administration are on the same page, they all know what is going on behind closed doors, so there is no miscommunication here. I just find it too hard to believe that Obama’s Transportation Secretary would introduce an idea that he knew Obama didn’t support. He released this information with President Obama’s support.

This was a deliberate feeling out process to gauge where the American people stood on this issue. And they were not happy.

President Obama was then able to backtrack and claim he never supported this idea when in fact he knew that this idea was about to be floated.

President Obama saw the reaction and reacted to it. He now opposes the idea of a miles driven tax but two questions still remain.

Did he support the miles driven tax before he saw the reaction to it? You have read my answer to that question.

And.

Will he support it in the future? You can probably guess what I think the answer to that question is.