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If by “people” you mean “Americans”, they buy F-150s to go to the grocery store, and they vote out governments that threaten their ability to do so. Taxing pol
by rgmerk 4y ago
If by “people” you mean “Americans”, they buy F-150s to go to the grocery store, and they vote out governments that threaten their ability to do so.
Taxing pollution, particularly consumer-facing taxes, has a long history of political failure, whereas subsidising clean technology has a long history of political and technical success.
- waldothedog 4y ago*F-250
- rjbwork 4y agoSaw an F-450 the other day... granted, it was at the gun range, but I was there in my compact hatchback and it had not a spec of dust on it.
- maeil 4y agoIt doesn't simply "have a long history of political failure"; it has a history of political failure in certain areas of the United States. In much of the rest of the developed world, e.g. nearly all of Western-Europe, it has a history of success and taxing cars based on fuel consumption and emissions has indeed caused buyers to gravitate towards more fuel-efficient cars.
- WalterBright 4y agoDo they tax the rate of emissions, or the amount emitted? It's important to tax the latter.
- maeil 4y agoBoth. The former directly through taxes on the cars themselves and the latter indirectly through fuel taxes, which while imperfect works well as a proxy.
- WalterBright 4y agoFuel taxes work well for CO2 emissions, but not for other emissions, where the design of the ICE can reduce them dramatically.
- rgmerk 4y agoFair point, but the EU ETS took many, many years to have any serious effect as I understand it.
- WalterBright 4y agoIf we can have a sales tax, we can have pollution taxes.
- rgmerk 4y agoIn the United States, you can't, at least at a federal level, nor across most of the red states.