7 ms·

That's overly reductive. 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the t

• bflesch 2y ago
  Meanwhile jet fuel for private jets is (and remains) not taxed at all, even in the EU.
  • cogman10 2y ago
    Which is bonkers. If ever there was a thing that should be taxed it's jet fuel for private jets. 300% tax on private jet fuel would be reasonable. The emissions just to shuttle rich people from one side of the country to the next (For some, multiple times per day) is insane. You should need to be a billionaire just to afford flying private jets and it should still eat a significant portion of your income if that's what you choose to do. And for what? Like, we live in the modern era, why does anyone need to travel from NY to Florida to Texas to California in a day?
    • Gibbon1 2y ago
      I have a suspicion the reason why super wealthy people like say Musk but he isn't the only one hate subways and high speed rail is because they fly everywhere. You might like if you could get on the subway in Glen Park and be at lands end in half an hour. You might like getting on a high speed rail and being in LA in 4 hours. These guy will never ride a subway or take a train anywhere.
      • gonzoflip 2y ago
        I'm no Musk fanboy, but it is funny you mention him not liking subways or high speed rail because didn't he try to build a subterranean high speed rail?
        • AlexandrB 2y ago
          The hyperloop was a shit idea from day one and thus far no one has been able to make it work. It's also entirely possible that Elon Musk floated this as a distraction to stop the development of "regular" high speed rain in California[1]. The Las Vegas "loop"[2], on the other hand, is basically a parody of a subway - with a fraction of the capacity. > In July 2021, the peak passenger flow was recorded at 1,355 passengers per hour. As a comparison Toronto's subway can handle 28,000 passengers per hour[3] per direction or more. [1] https://www.jalopnik.com/did-musk-propose-hyperloop-to-stop-california-high-spee-1849402460/ https://www.jalopnik.com/did-musk-propose-hyperloop-to-stop-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Convention_Center_Loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Convention_Center_Lo... [3] https://dailyhive.com/toronto/ttc-toronto-subway-station-ridership-2018 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/ttc-toronto-subway-station-rid...
          • gonzoflip 2y ago
            Did I say it was a good idea? I was merely pointing out that there's evidence that he is not the best example for people that hate high-speed rails and subways. >Stop the development of high speed rail in California I thought that got funded, what happened?
            • deleted 2y ago
              [deleted]
          • Gibbon1 2y ago
            You'll note to two things that ties the hyper loop and the Las Vegas Loop together is private cars. Don't discount that these guys find ordinary people to be scary and disgusting.
  • ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
    Ffs
  • michpoch 2y ago
    What makes a jet private? Should Trump's Boegin 757 count as one? What if an airline is flying a jet with no passengers? Cargo jets?
    • foobarchu 2y ago
      The same thing that differentiate a private car from public transportation or freight, I would think. This distinction isn't a particularly novel problem.
      • michpoch 2y ago
        We don't differentiate these in any significant way. Do buses in your country pay different rate for fuel? There are vans carrying 6 people on international routes in Europe, is this public transport? Private? Anyone can book it.
        • aceofspades19 2y ago
          Well actually, lots of places have special fuel for farm vehicles that are exempt from certain taxes. It's dyed a certain colour so if you get caught with that colour of fuel in your vehicle you can get in trouble. So its not a crazy thing to suggest that we tax different fuel at different rates.
  • almostnormal 2y ago
    > Meanwhile jet fuel for private jets is (and remains) not taxed at all, even in the EU. Not correct. Fuel for private aviation is taxed, including jet fuel and avgas. However, there are very few "private" jets, most are operated by some company, and therefore not private. Jet-A1 for a truely privately operated C172 with a diesel engine is taxed.
  • sokoloff 2y ago
    This is a common trope, but is incorrect, at least for the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...
• breakyerself 2y ago
  Carbon taxes become progressive with the simple step of returning the revenue to taxpayers as a dividend payment using the existing social security payment infrastructure. Richer people have such outsized carbon footprints that most people would get back more in dividends than they lost in higher costs.
• MostlyStable 2y ago
  All carbon tax is inherently regressive but that's also trivially fixable. Make it revenue neutral and give every citizen a flat portion of the total collected revenue. Bam, it is now progressive, since on average richer people will spend more on fuel (and therefore the tax) even though it is likely a much smaller percentage of their spending. Every single one of your ideas has problems that are solved by a carbon tax. Taxes are simple, they accomplish what you want, and they don't have loopholes. A carbon tax will _never_ have the unintended consequence of making emissions worse. Many of our current regulations, including the one I was responding to do exactly that because they actually cause people to buy larger trucks than they otherwise would with worse fuel efficiency. A carbon tax might not on it's own be enough to solve the problem (especially if you set it to low), but no matter what level you set it, it will help. Thanks to unintended consequences, many of our current regulations are actively counter productive, while _also_ having negative economic and other costs.
  • abakker 2y ago
    All costs are regressive to people with less ability to bear them. By making them not regressive we don't change behavior! It doesn't matter if they're regressive if the objective is to get people to not drive or to burn less gas. Shifting the cost to the rich doesn't change behavior and it doesn't reduce actual carbon. There's a lot more low-income emitters than high income ones.
    • MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
      > Shifting the cost to the rich doesn't change behavior and it doesn't reduce actual carbon. Shifting cost to the emitters is a better way to put it. If a factory can make 10m in upgrades over time to reduce their carbon tax burden by 15m over time, they are definitely going to do it. So I disagree: I say it does change behavior and it does reduce actual carbon. > There's a lot more low-income emitters than high income ones Whether that's true or not it does not mean a carbon tax would not 'reduce actual carbon'.
      • otterley 2y ago
• danans 2y ago
  > 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive. You give it back to poor as a income-phased out refundable tax credit. Crucially, base it not on how much they drive or consume, but on their income. Name it something like the "Worker's Energy Credit". In the worst case, it cancels out the carbon tax spent by them commensurate with their lower income. In the best case poor people who don't drive much actually come out ahead, and it's just a very progressive sales tax. The rich might hate it, and call it "redistribution", which is fine because that's exactly what it is, and what taxes have always been, but this one would redistribute downwards instead of upwards, and incentivize lower carbon emissions by those who can afford it.
  • dgfitz 2y ago
    > The rich might hate it, and call it "redistribution", which is fine because that's exactly what it is, and what taxes have always been, but this one would redistribute downwards instead of upwards, and incentivize lower carbon emissions by those who can afford it. Larry Page would be pumped. His annual salary is $1. I feel pretty strongly that adding exceptions and loopholes to taxes only benefit wealthy people, which is the opposite of the intent. I would be interested in reading a study where all the tax laws in the country were burned down and rebuilt, with no loopholes or exceptions. Also, eliminate borrowing against a stock portfolio. That is downright evil.
    • dragonwriter 2y ago
      > I feel pretty strongly that adding exceptions and loopholes to taxes only benefit wealthy people, which is the opposite of the intent. It depends what the exception is. If the exceptions are "we treat a form of income received disproportionately by the rich a 'not income' and tax it at a lower rate, and on top of that we add an extra tax on top of income tax on labor income, and cap the larger part of that extra tax, too, to avoid burdening high earners", that helps the rich, sure. But there are plenty of exceptions possible that don't do that.
    • danans 2y ago
• bongodongobob 2y ago
  Are you saying used car sales would have a carbon tax? I've never heard anyone suggest anything like that. It's just a tax on new items.
• xvokcarts 2y ago
  Looks like as long as only positive change is allowed to touch the poor, there will be little change.
  • austhrow743 2y ago
    Going to let us burn because not doing so would be regressive.
• AdrianB1 2y ago
  If you want to reduce carbon emissions, if the tax is regressive or not does not matter as long as you tax emissions. If you want to mix too many things, you will not get a good solution for any.
• DrNosferatu 2y ago
  This.
• nullc 2y ago
  > 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive. The idea that policy makers care about this in any meaningful sense is absurd given the EV mandates, as EV's radically change the lifecycle costs of cars in a way that is absolutely destructive to people who aren't wealthy. EV's lower the 'fueling' cost but shift part of it into large cashflow crushing battery replacement costs. Automobiles have been a significant engine in elevating less wealthy americans because you can buy a old junky car for very little and keep it limping along with use-proportional fuel costs and minor maintenance. Even if it's an inefficient car, you use it to go to work, so you're making money to pay for the fuel. Less work, less work fuel required. EV's significantly break the model and will push many more less wealthy people onto predatory financing which they'll never escape. Yet policy makers refuse to even discuss the life-cycle cashflow difference of EVs, and continue to more forward with policies to eventually mandate their use. > it was almost certain to be wrong in one direction or the other, but it hasn't been updated. It's been broken all along. We've had decades to fix it.
• renewiltord 2y ago
  Yeah that’s the truth. The mass of poor people are the predominant polluters. They produce little of value and pollute a lot. So the question then is whether you care about the environment or about the poor and most people would rather the latter.
• morepedantic 2y ago
  TIL poor people can't pollute, so their market segment shouldn't be incentivized to cut pollution. TIL that US car companies won't make smaller cars in the face of different regulations, even though they made larger cars in response to current regulations. The only way to avoid perversions is to tax the problem directly. The market will adjust to all proxies in unintended and harmful ways.
  • parineum 2y ago
    A disincentive on a thing you don't want makes people choose another thing that you may or may not want. The only way to avoid perversions is to incentivize the things you want. Taxing cigarettes led to vaping. Maybe less bad but still a nuisance.
    • morepedantic 2y ago
      Are you agreeing with me, or did you drop a negative twice?
      • parineum 2y ago
        You're statement is not true. Disincentives don't make people make good choices, they make them make different choices. Incentives guide people to make a specific choice.
        • morepedantic 2y ago
          It is the role of a central planner to pick a particular outcome, and it's also the worst strategy of the modern era. Everything which is not forbidden is allowed. Your belief that you should make the positive choice on behalf of others is the most dangerous philosophy of the 20th century.