No Sweat Solutions to Global Warming’s Recent Comments

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  Low income people

  
  If we're going to employ either a cap-and-trade system or a tax, we'll need to pair it with either efficiency projects or further subsidies for low-income utility customers.
  

  
  

  True enough. And not just low income utility customers, but low income drives, low income purchasers of goods and services whose price is raised by a carbon tax.
  

  There is a really simple way to do this. Take all of the revenue raised from such a tax. Divide it equally among the U.S. population. The very rich emit a great deal more carbon per capita than everyone one else (Yachts, private aircraft, 6,000 plus square feet homes and so on) and the rich and upper middle classes also use more than the U.S. average (more plane trips, larger homes and so on). So this will make the net effect of the tax slightly progressive - with the poor getting back more than they put in, hourly workers, and most professionals getting back about what they put in. But you still have the incentive - so you get the behavior change without the regressivity or the arguments about what programs to put the money into.
  On Some signs point to yes posted 2 years, 7 months ago 9 Responses