Are these people on techno-crack?

The Obama administration is considering replacing the gasoline tax with a mileage tax.  This has generated overheated responses like this:

A vehicle miles traveled tax, as the proposal is often called, has been
under consideration in states like Rhode Island and Idaho and has, not
surprisingly, proven pretty unpopular.
First, it’s a tax. Second, it requires the installation of a GPS chip
to record miles driven and beam the information to centralized
computers. Sorry, did that sound Orwellian? I meant a small transponder
that informs the government of your driving habits.

I don’t know what they do up in YankeeLand, but here in Texas, you are required by law to get an annual vehicle inspection.  One of the things that gets recorded in the inspection is your odometer reading.  Only the government–and Ezra Klein–would decide to determine miles traveled by GPS-chipping each and every vehicle and tracking them in real time, instead of using some simpler technology, say subtraction*.

Tip from The Corner.

* current miles – last year’s miles = miles traveled