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Carbon taxes disproportionately hurt low income people. Rich folks will still drive their cars, fly on jets, and use tons of energy in general. Carbon taxes als

Carbon taxes disproportionately hurt low income people. Rich folks will still drive their cars, fly on jets, and use tons of energy in general. Carbon taxes also make your nation less competitive in a global economy. That’s not good when enemy states have zero compunction about using fossil fuels to overtake you economically and militarily. Carbon taxes also incentivize industry to move production to nations with little or no carbon tax. In general I find it extremely foolish to think that carbon taxes would be a good way of going about this.

rcpt 5y ago
Climate change disproportionately hurts low income people even more. Those who rely on crop yields and fish stocks to survive every year and don't have the money to become refugees will have a much harder time than the first world folks who might need to start carpooling.
jpeloquin 5y ago
> Carbon taxes disproportionately hurt low income people. If the carbon tax collected was re-distributed uniformly as a tax credit (each person gets the same tax credit), would it still hurt low income people? I Googled this and it seems like it should help people with low incomes, but maybe there's something wrong with the underlying reasoning. https://aneconomicsense.org/2020/08/06/a-carbon-tax-with-redistribution-would-be-a-significant-help-to-the-poor/ https://aneconomicsense.org/2020/08/06/a-carbon-tax-with-red...
- tomatotomato37 5y ago
  No, but every proposal so far hand waves the specifics of both what the tax will go to along with all the other technical details that would actually make the tax work. We could have a utopian world where the true value of carbon is consistently taxed equally across all industries and then distributed efficiently to those unfairly affected by it. We could also have an unholy bureaucrtic nightmare where the actual tax varies violently depending on which party in power, has exemptions for every industry big enough to have lobbyist, and instead completely burdens the middle class while all profits go towards filling the desert with enough tanks to fight WWII sixteen times over while still having enough left over to think really, really hard about building high speed rail in a place that isn't useless. Don't forget that the people that would be implementing this are the same people who are currently voting to criminalize every element of the cryptocurrency ecosystem (including development of more efficient standards) while still leaving an exception for PoW miners.
  - NumberWangMan 5y ago
    Maybe check out the energy innovation act-I think it's a pretty good counterexample to what you're describing. https://energyinnovationact.org/section-by-section-analysis/ https://energyinnovationact.org/section-by-section-analysis/ All the money has to go to the dividend, minus the admin costs which should be very small. The bill does include exemptions for the military and agriculture, so it's not perfect, but it is necessary to make some concessions to make it politically viable. I'd rather have this bill now than one without those exemptions in 15 years or whatever.
it_citizen 5y ago
A carbon tax with dividends would solve that problem. It would be a net positive for the first 6 or 7 decile of the population while still sending a strong signal to the markets to switch to greener alternatives to stay competitive. Regarding moving production abroad, the carbon tax should work hand in hand with a border adjustment mechanism. You can look at how it has been implemented in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada
renewiltord 5y ago
Yeah well that’s because poor people (in America) are hella carbon inefficient for economic value creation. They’ll drive like 100 miles each way to work a $16/hr job as a McDonalds worker. That shit is not sustainable.

rcpt 5y ago

Climate change disproportionately hurts low income people even more. Those who rely on crop yields and fish stocks to survive every year and don't have the money to become refugees will have a much harder time than the first world folks who might need to start carpooling.

jpeloquin 5y ago

> Carbon taxes disproportionately hurt low income people. If the carbon tax collected was re-distributed uniformly as a tax credit (each person gets the same tax credit), would it still hurt low income people? I Googled this and it seems like it should help people with low incomes, but maybe there's something wrong with the underlying reasoning. https://aneconomicsense.org/2020/08/06/a-carbon-tax-with-redistribution-would-be-a-significant-help-to-the-poor/ https://aneconomicsense.org/2020/08/06/a-carbon-tax-with-red...

tomatotomato37 5y ago
No, but every proposal so far hand waves the specifics of both what the tax will go to along with all the other technical details that would actually make the tax work. We could have a utopian world where the true value of carbon is consistently taxed equally across all industries and then distributed efficiently to those unfairly affected by it. We could also have an unholy bureaucrtic nightmare where the actual tax varies violently depending on which party in power, has exemptions for every industry big enough to have lobbyist, and instead completely burdens the middle class while all profits go towards filling the desert with enough tanks to fight WWII sixteen times over while still having enough left over to think really, really hard about building high speed rail in a place that isn't useless. Don't forget that the people that would be implementing this are the same people who are currently voting to criminalize every element of the cryptocurrency ecosystem (including development of more efficient standards) while still leaving an exception for PoW miners.
- NumberWangMan 5y ago
  Maybe check out the energy innovation act-I think it's a pretty good counterexample to what you're describing. https://energyinnovationact.org/section-by-section-analysis/ https://energyinnovationact.org/section-by-section-analysis/ All the money has to go to the dividend, minus the admin costs which should be very small. The bill does include exemptions for the military and agriculture, so it's not perfect, but it is necessary to make some concessions to make it politically viable. I'd rather have this bill now than one without those exemptions in 15 years or whatever.

it_citizen 5y ago

A carbon tax with dividends would solve that problem. It would be a net positive for the first 6 or 7 decile of the population while still sending a strong signal to the markets to switch to greener alternatives to stay competitive. Regarding moving production abroad, the carbon tax should work hand in hand with a border adjustment mechanism. You can look at how it has been implemented in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada

renewiltord 5y ago

Yeah well that’s because poor people (in America) are hella carbon inefficient for economic value creation. They’ll drive like 100 miles each way to work a $16/hr job as a McDonalds worker. That shit is not sustainable.