There are insured drivers in the United States — mostly citizens since illegals bypass this sort of nuisance — who participate in an insurance company program. It installs an app on your phone that we call "Mobile Mother-in-Law."
You install the app and it monitors where you drive, when you drive, and how fast you drive. It may even cross-reference the data with the weather.
We aren’t sure.
What we are sure of is the insurance company analyzes the data and if you obey the speed limit and don’t park in the passing lane on the highway, the insurance company will give you a discount on your premium.
(We made the part up about the passing lane, but you get the idea.)
If you use the app and succumb to lead-foot disease, not only will you not get an insurance discount, you may suffer an auto insurance increase!
Car owners who opt into this app program do so voluntarily with the expectation that their participation will save them money.
Now the government wants to get in the app business in the near future and, since it’s the government, the program will be mandatory — and it will cost you money.
The Epoch Times brings us the bad news.
Government regulations that increased gas mileage and government subsidies that encouraged the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles have resulted in less revenue for state and federal government highway funds, because those funds are financed by the gas tax.
Electric vehicles don’t buy gas, hybrids only buy a little and regular cars get more distance from a tank of gas these days.
As a spokesman for the Eastern Transportation Coalition explains, "All vehicles are going farther on less gas, and that is great for our wallets, especially with the gas prices going up.
"But it’s not so good when our transportation system is dependent on that fuel tax. The link between usage and payment is broken."
Naturally, government is springing into action.
Currently 31 states charge electric vehicles a special, more expensive registration fee.
But that once-a-year payment isn’t enough for government bureaucrats.
You know them all-too-well.
The same people who made you mask-up (even outside!) want to make you install an app to monitor your driving.
We call it Big Brother in the Backseat, and it's bad news.
Drivers are less than enthusiastic about this prospect and bureaucrats and NGO nannies can’t fathom why.
The Coalition person had the gall to say, "This is a very challenging topic to talk about because nobody likes talking about paying for transportation. We all like the transportation that we use but paying for it is a hard conversation."
We don’t know about you, but our cars cost thousands of dollars and we paid it.
What the government is demanding is we pay extra for transportation.
Drivers who are paying attention are also very concerned about their privacy and government intrusion into it.
It’s one thing to volunteer for an insurance app and gain a discount in return.
It’s quite another to be forced to install an app or a tracking device and have a cyber mother-in-law riding shotgun as Big Brother.
The comically out-of-touch Coalition flack has a positive spin for that situation, too:
"Developers expect a third party, not the government, will keep track of where drivers go, and how much they owe, and some studies have indicated that because a third party is doing the tracking, the data is safe from government eyes.
"The data would go to a government contractor that would deduct the amount owed from a user’s credit card and pay it to the states where the vehicle had been."
Would that be the same government that forced "third party" cellphone providers to give tracking data belonging to the Jan. 6 political prisoners to the DOJ without a warrant?
We’re supposed to believe our travel data would be safe "from those government eyes"?
There are other ways to charge for highway usage without taking a giant step into the Total Surveillance State.
If the IRS grants a mileage deduction based on mileage entered on a tax form, then the states can use the same data for its usage tax.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.