How government makes us all vassals even if it's unintentional

You wouldn't mind government tracking your car and mileage real-time, would you?

Great news: State governments are finally realizing they've about topped out the huge taxes hidden in the price of each gallon of gasoline. Of course, that doesn't mean they'll make do with the tax revenues they have.

Not-so-great news: They're looking to nip American drivers another way, by taxing us according to how many miles we use the roadways. Oregon and Minnesota are already running pilot studies. While Nevada and Washington are hatching similar plots. Experts said we're likely to have such levies within 60 months, according to USA Today. So, how would this work anyway?

The culprits for this problem, from the states' point of view, are the unintended disastrous consequences of these dad-gummed increased fuel-efficiency standards that President Obama is always bragging about as he drives around in motorcades of 17 armored SUVs.

With more efficient automobile engines, we'll be going farther on less gas, once thought to be a good thing. However, as a result, we'll be buying fewer gallons of gasoline, which means less taxes collected. And while working Americans see that as nifty, their government bureaucrats see that as a threat to the billions of dollars they want to keep spending on re-doing shovel-ready roads.

Also the 314 Americans driving electric cars today would not be paying a single cent in gas taxes. And with the prospect that electric cars could someday total as many as 1,500 or even 2,000 nationally, the cost to government of freeloading electric cars' tires running across the pavement is unimaginable.

The solution is as clear as a Rain-X windshield in a downpour. Government needs to know how many miles every single car travels every year, so a fee can be levied per mile. Like rental cars.

How you do this is clear to government as well. You put a GPS in every single motor vehicle that reports directly to government every mile you drive. Oh, sure, there would probably be a few freedom freaks like Ron Paul who'd question the need for 57 50 all-knowing state governments tracking exactly where every American car is at any given moment in time.

Given freedom of information rules, anyone might then go into computer records and find that while a husband said he was just running out to the gym 1.4 miles from home last Sunday afternoon, he actually drove 4.8 miles out to the Interstate where all those motels are. And the times of motor-off and motor back on.

Who could possibly have a problem with that? Given, you know, the obvious need for government to make up revenue "lost" because of the urgently emerging problems of more fuel-efficient vehicles.