I've been telling people how great this idea is for years, because it's simple for organizations to plan around as it gradually ratchets up, easy to administer,

I've been telling people how great this idea is for years, because it's simple for organizations to plan around as it gradually ratchets up, easy to administer, and sort of progressive in the sense that the poor benefit more (relatively) than the rich. But this year the penny finally dropped for me how demoralizingly futile it is to make rational carbon policy in the US by talking about its merits. The success of the Inflation Reduction Act ($370bn for climate) was entirely due to a cunning political hack: not taxing individuals (only corporations) and reducing the deficit at the same time (by staffing the IRS to enforce existing tax collection laws), so that it could be acceptable to the holdout conservative Democrats.