Nobody likes taxes.

Newly minted White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly reportedly quipped recently at a Cabinet meeting that his opinion on taxes was simple: he pays them, and he hates paying them.

Most people probably feel that way about gasoline taxes. They shake their head at the pump, put the gas cap back on and get back on the road.

The problem is that gas taxes are quickly becoming an unsustainable way to fund infrastructure work on our country’s network of state and interstate highways. The federal gas tax has been stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon for more than two decades, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Highway Trust Fund, which helps fund infrastructure construction across the nation, will be insolvent in a decade.

Meanwhile, more fuel efficient vehicles means drivers have to visit the pump less often, and major advances in the efficiency and popularity of electric vehicles mean some don’t have to visit it at all.

In Pennsylvania, state officials have routinely raided the state fund meant for transportation projects to plug holes in the budget of the Pennsylvania State Police — an unforced and likely unconstitutional error that has helped exacerbate the problem of funding for highways and bridges throughout the state.

The result has been a dangerous and unacceptable decline in the condition of the commonwealth’s infrastructure. It’s clear to anyone with an even rudimentary understanding of the issue that something must be done.

But the latest not-so-bright idea to come to Pennsylvania — a mileage-based use tax on motorists — should be a non-starter. A multistate partnership of transportation agencies and other organizations recently won a $1.16 million federal grant to begin the study. They should save everyone the time and money and just declare the idea dead on arrival.

Simply put, this is one of the worst ideas we’ve ever heard. And pouring any money — state, federal or local — into an effort to study it is misguided.

A milage tax won’t work for a variety of reasons.

How would the state track drivers’ mileage? Installing GPS components in all vehicles? That would likely be prohibitively expensive.

Using a mandated smart phone app might work — until you realize how ridiculous it would be for state officials to mandate that every driver buy a smart phone just so the government can tax their travel.

What about those drivers who routinely cross state lines for their job or for personal travel? How would officials properly track their mileage?

Speaking of drivers who are on the road more often: how are mileage-based taxes and fees fair to rural Pennsylvanians? They’re to be penalized simply because they don’t have access to public transit or live in a city, where things like grocery stores and pharmacies and hospitals are more often within walking or biking distance?

Such programs have already been tried in states like Oregon, which has pushed forward with the idea despite pushback from motorists and rural residents, and been met with lackluster support at best.

That likely won’t change in Pennsylvania, where drivers are already sick and tired of being nickel-and-dimed to death by “transportation taxes” that are quietly used to fund anything and everything, it seems, but transportation.