Bill Chameides, all around smart guy and dean of Duke’s Nicholas School, takes a look at the rash of conservatives supporting carbon taxes (which I addressed the other day in more, um, colorful terms):
Some of my colleagues believe it’s the poisoned pawn ploy—since taxes are not viable politically, kill climate legislation by favoring a carbon tax.
I have a different hunch.
His hunch is that conservatives want to raise a carbon tax (which is regressive) in order to lower income taxes (which are progressive)—in other words, they want a regressive tax shift. These newly minted carbon tax fans are longtime champions of that agenda:
Coincidentally, Inglis and Laffer just happen to favor replacing our progressive tax system with a more regressive one (see here and here). Inglis has earned the Citizens for Tax Justice’s highest rating for his opposition "to progressive taxes," and Laffer is a highly vocal proponent of the flat tax that would replace our progressive tax system with a single tax rate for all Americans.
Many things about the tax vs. C&T debate are uncertain, but one thing I have no doubt about is that James Inhofe and Rex Tillerson are not participating in good faith. If those two guys told me the earth was round I’d be rechecking satellite photos.
Feed the world sustainably by 2050? Yes, we can!
Comments
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:39 am
29 Jan 2009
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Angelsnecropolis Posted 9:58 am
29 Jan 2009
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F James Handley Posted 10:58 am
29 Jan 2009
Because low- and mid-income households spend a larger fraction of income on energy than top brackets, they'd be hit harder by carbon pricing (either tax or cap). It's a regressive tax.
Sen. Shaheen asked Gore yesterday about "recycling" funds from carbon taxes (or carbon auctions under a cap) as monthly distributions or reductions in payroll taxes. Gore agreed, that would help.
Economists and maybe pro-business Republicans (e.g., Corker, Inglis) dislike wage taxes -- they discourage hiring and work. If they support pricing carbon while reducing taxes on "goods" (like work) and replacing them with taxes on "bads" (like carbon pollution), isn't that a win-win?
The "denier-in-chief's" departure changed the conversation. Republicans bristle at cap-n-trade proposals -- hidden taxes to fund all kinds of questionable projects and free allowances. Environmentalists (e.g., Friends of the Earth) are concerned about the same kinds of give-aways.
Maybe strange bedfellows, but both want transparency, maybe for different reasons.
Think bipartisan revenue-neutral carbon tax!
See http://www.carbontax.org for more info, and http://www.pricecarbon to send letters to Congress and sign our petition.
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GRLCowan Posted 11:15 am
29 Jan 2009
Equal dividends.
Start with existing C revenues. This establishes a useful precedent, making increases in fossil C tax easier to sell, the people having that precedent in mind to persuade them you won't forget the revenue-neutral part, and -- if they are poor or pedestrian -- their cheques.
How fire can be domesticated
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Delay And Deny Posted 12:27 pm
29 Jan 2009
Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and led by scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this remarkable study shows how the number of high-energy cosmic-rays reaching a detector deep underground, closely matches temperature measurements in the upper atmosphere (known as the stratosphere). For the first time, scientists have shown how this relationship can be used to identify weather events that occur very suddenly in the stratosphere during the Northern Hemisphere winter. These events can have a significant effect on the severity of winters we experience, and also on the amount of ozone over the poles - being able to identify them and understand their frequency is crucial for informing our current climate and weather-forecasting models to improve predictions.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121091228 ...
You know you're not a liberal when...
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Komanoff Posted 1:04 pm
29 Jan 2009
You assert that Rep. Bob Inglis, the South Carolina Republican who editorialized in the NY Times a month ago for a revenue-neutral carbon tax, seeks a regressive tax-shift. But Inglis wrote that he favored a tax-shift out of payroll taxes (progressive) or income taxes (depends on how it's structured). That's shoddy journalism.
The links you furnished (courtesy of a former EDF employee) to show that Inglis (who, by the way, voted against the Oct 2002 Iraq War resolution) is a wacko were not to Inglis but to (i) an interest group's ratings of him and (ii) a piece by his NYT co-author Arthur Laffer. That's shoddy and cheesy.
You call a carbon tax regressive w/o acknowledging that the cap-and-trade system you're pushing for is just as regressive -- until we account for distribution of the revenues from the tax or the permit sales. Your bias is showing.
You state unequivocally that Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson's advocacy of a carbon tax is in bad faith. What proof do you have? And can you not conceive that on this matter Exxon's interest in a predictable carbon emissions price set by a reasonably non-gamed, non-speculation-driven system might have some overlap with the interest of climate champions like us?
I wrote the other day that "your admonition to carbon tax advocates to sit down and stop rocking the boat was creepily redolent of what moderates have told non-violent radicals throughout history." My plea evidently fell on deaf ears. A strong, important voice in eco-journalism and advocacy has become cracked and shrill. Sad.
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Hal 9000 Posted 1:55 pm
29 Jan 2009
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David Roberts Posted 1:58 pm
29 Jan 2009
It's a little difficult to believe I have to defend the proposition that Exxon is not participating in climate policy discussions in good faith. Should we also solicit Wal-Mart's thoughts on labor policy?
As to all the other stuff: I'm not telling you to sit down and shut up. I wouldn't presume and nobody listens to me anyway. I'm simply pointing out the reality: there's a climate policy on the table, its fate is fragile and uncertain, and now it is being attacked not only from the right but from the left. Perhaps the absurd caricatures of cap-and-trade flying around lefty circles will create enough bipartisan ill will to kill its chances. But I guarantee you -- and I will bet you any amount of money on this, name your price -- that the U.S. Congress isn't going to pass a carbon tax.
grist.org
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amazingdrx Posted 2:00 pm
29 Jan 2009
Then the swiftboat ads will lop of our greenies' heads. It's a lot simpler than imposing regressive taxes.
Cap and trade is a harder way to do this, it's fuzzier and will be harder to use as swiftboat fuel. But they will still do it.
Subsidy diversion is the only plan we can defend as not any kind of "new tax". We can rightly call it tax, deficit, and revenue neutral policy to foster recovery through green jobs, claiming that record profits in the fossil fuel industry proves they no longer need these subsidies that now amount to corporate welfare.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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GreenMom Posted 2:44 pm
29 Jan 2009
The Republicans are masters at exploiting discord among Democrats, and that's the game they're playing here.
What evidence could one possibly muster, after the last eight years, that the Republicans in Congress are acting in good faith on climate policy? Maybe a few individuals are, but for the most part, they're a craven and willfully ignorant lot.
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JMG Posted 5:29 pm
29 Jan 2009
If we stipulate that, then why should we care what Rs want? In the end, if the other side won't negotiate, then the negotiation ends or you capitulate to their unreasonableness.
I suspect that the bigger problem -- far bigger -- is going to be Democrats like Baucus and Byrd, who are going to be happy to see Rs oppose Obama so they don't have to.
The other problem is that Dems, habitually trained from birth to cringe and whinge about those awful Rs and their attack ads, still haven't noticed that the Rs are about as popular as a case of herpes at a frat-sorority mixer, and fading fast. The Dems have a moment right now where they could be wheeling out progressive policies much faster than Rs could oppose them, and Dems could crucify Rs with their backwards reactionary postures . . . if only there weren't so many Dems adopting those same postures.
Paul Krugman's latest (http://is.gd/hMsx), for example, asks "What happened to universal health care?" We see that Obama giving in like mad on tax gifts to the rich, gifts to coal, talking about even more biofuelish insanity . . .
Maybe we ought to stop locating the problem in the Rs and talk about why Ds seem to want to be helpless in the face of their dominant legislative majorities and control of the White House. If the Rs want to filibuster everything from now to 2010 we'll have 75 Democratic Senators and 300 House Members in January 2011.
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:32 pm
29 Jan 2009
Bigger because they have more power and are every bit as motivated by industry lobbyists as the GOP. But Vilsack-of-corn-ethanol is even more of a threat.
I see the Obama grassroots team pushing both parties wherever they need it. Calls will be targeted across state lines to keep pressure on the individual corporats on both sides.
Reform candidates can run in primaries to oppose demo-corporats as well as running in the usual way against repuglican corporats.
Can a Byrd be booted by a democratic reform candidate? Probably not, but we could cause him (or rather his corporate puppeteers) lots of agravation he won't like.
"If the Rs want to filibuster everything from now to 2010 we'll have 75 Democratic Senators and 300 House Members in January 2011"
No way, that way lies failure for the economy, and for us democrats. And even the dimmest limboobs know it.
The GOP desperate enough to change its spots? Not until the governator takes over. The south shall rise and (hopefully) fall once again, before lobbyists give up on the babble belt strategery.
Their big chance will be this next election, they are betting on an obstructionist stance, tax cuts for the rich/business, trickle down, supply side voodoo economics, hooverism disguised as the reagan revolution. It's all they've got, except for the fractional progressive movement represented by Ahhnoldt.
And I think the babble belt coalition would rather have Larry Craig toe tapping them into this century than any progressives taking charge. They'll want to run Jeb and Sarah in 2012. Or Sarah and Jeb?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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drosenblum Posted 11:09 pm
29 Jan 2009
How about waiting to see what Tillerson actually does, instead of assuming the worst? While it is certainly incontrovertible that Exxon-Mobil has aligned itself with and funded climate change deniers in the past, Exxon-Mobil cut off that funding last May. Since that time the company has acknowledged climate change and its support of carbon taxes is entirely consistent with a commitment to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Will Exxon-Mobil support a price on carbon that will actually make a difference? Who knows? I hope we find out soon. Until then, there is no support for your arguments about Tillerson.
Curiously, you don't seem to care about the information we already have about how the major polluters that belong to USCAP (such as Duke Energy, Shell, BP America and ConocoPhillips) are trying to game cap-and-trade. Fortunately, Joe Romm's NRDC and EDF endorse the weak, coal-friendly, rip-offset-heavy USCAP climate plan has demonstrated which polluters are really doing the gaming.
Your description of Congressional support for carbon taxes is equally misleading. Reading your posts, one could understandably think that support for carbon taxes is merely an attempt by right-wing conservatives to champion their longtime agenda to implement a regressive tax shift.
How about looking at the facts? Congressman John Larson (D-CT), the sponsor of the leading carbon tax bill in the last Congress, has a 6.78% rating from the American Conservative Union, 85% from the LCV and 95% from the ADA. Pete Stark (D-CA), who has consistently proposed and supported carbon taxes has a 3.66% rating from the ACU, 100% from the LCV and 90% from the ADA. Conservative?
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amazingdrx Posted 11:46 pm
29 Jan 2009
Is give them a chance...to sucker green legislators to support carbon taxes, that will never pass filibuster, and then next election time swiftboat ads will converge on them. Reid has this happening to him already.
"No new taxes", especially during a recession, live or die politically by that motto. It's the first rule of post reagan politics.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bill Chameides Posted 2:19 am
02 Feb 2009
Dr. Bill Chameides is the dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.
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