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Here's what we need to do to get support for a carbon tax: don't make it a tax. Add $x to each unit of carbon and put it in a fund that the federal government

Here's what we need to do to get support for a carbon tax: don't make it a tax. Add $x to each unit of carbon and put it in a fund that the federal government has no access to. Then, at the end of each year, empty the fund completely by sending checks to each citizen.

gohrt 11y ago
That incentivizes making babies for profit. Also, that is a tax, as much as Social Security is a tax+redistribution program. It is sort of a reverse paygo, though, committing a spending program for all new tax dollars.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  Only if you set it up to do so. Other alternatives are easily conceived.
jsankey 11y ago
The previous federal government in Australia introduced something along these lines: a carbon tax designed to be revenue-neutral. Compensation for lower income earners was worked into the income tax system (some also went directly to certain highly-exposed export industries). Unfortunately thanks to incompetence in how this plan was sold by the previous government and an aggressive campaign against it by the opposition, that government lost the following election and now we have the worst of all worlds: carbon tax repealed (the only country going backwards in this regard AFAIK), compensation retained (the incoming government being too spineless to scrap it, despite themselves declaring a budget emergency) and a new braindead "direct action" policy where we now give tax dollars to polluters to encourage them to tone it down (stupidly inefficient and another hit to the budget).
computator 11y ago
How much to each citizen? (1) According to income or need? Then it's just wealth redistribution. (2) Exactly the same amount for each citizen? The farmer who needs his truck pays a lot, and gets back $x. Stock broker who lives and works in Manhattan and doesn't own a car pays little, but also gets back $x. (3) Exactly in proportion to how much carbon each person used? This accomplishes nothing except adding a layer of bureaucracy (you pay $n in carbon tax and get back $n-20% after government processing).
- nostromo 11y ago
  1) Same amount to each citizen. 2) The farmer would either pass the cost along to the customer, including the stock broker, or would ideally switch to low carbon alternatives. Over time, lower carbon emitting farmers would be more cost efficient and would gain marketshare. 3) A carbon tax would be largely invisible to most people. It would be collected from oil refineries and power plants, primarily.
harryh 11y ago
For reference the US consumes approximately 7B barrels of oil per year according to https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6 7B * $10 / 320M population = $218.75 per person. In case anyone was curious. Probably we can do something simpler than nostromo's plan. Pair the oil tax with a drop in the bottom tax bracket from 10% to 7%. That's about revenue neutral.

gohrt 11y ago

That incentivizes making babies for profit. Also, that is a tax, as much as Social Security is a tax+redistribution program. It is sort of a reverse paygo, though, committing a spending program for all new tax dollars.

waterlesscloud 11y ago
Only if you set it up to do so. Other alternatives are easily conceived.

jsankey 11y ago

The previous federal government in Australia introduced something along these lines: a carbon tax designed to be revenue-neutral. Compensation for lower income earners was worked into the income tax system (some also went directly to certain highly-exposed export industries). Unfortunately thanks to incompetence in how this plan was sold by the previous government and an aggressive campaign against it by the opposition, that government lost the following election and now we have the worst of all worlds: carbon tax repealed (the only country going backwards in this regard AFAIK), compensation retained (the incoming government being too spineless to scrap it, despite themselves declaring a budget emergency) and a new braindead "direct action" policy where we now give tax dollars to polluters to encourage them to tone it down (stupidly inefficient and another hit to the budget).

computator 11y ago

How much to each citizen? (1) According to income or need? Then it's just wealth redistribution. (2) Exactly the same amount for each citizen? The farmer who needs his truck pays a lot, and gets back $x. Stock broker who lives and works in Manhattan and doesn't own a car pays little, but also gets back $x. (3) Exactly in proportion to how much carbon each person used? This accomplishes nothing except adding a layer of bureaucracy (you pay $n in carbon tax and get back $n-20% after government processing).

nostromo 11y ago
1) Same amount to each citizen. 2) The farmer would either pass the cost along to the customer, including the stock broker, or would ideally switch to low carbon alternatives. Over time, lower carbon emitting farmers would be more cost efficient and would gain marketshare. 3) A carbon tax would be largely invisible to most people. It would be collected from oil refineries and power plants, primarily.

harryh 11y ago

For reference the US consumes approximately 7B barrels of oil per year according to https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6 7B * $10 / 320M population = $218.75 per person. In case anyone was curious. Probably we can do something simpler than nostromo's plan. Pair the oil tax with a drop in the bottom tax bracket from 10% to 7%. That's about revenue neutral.