Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax

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bodyofanamerican

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Crazy what you're allowed to believe and advocate for when you're not at the mercy of a frothing base!

‘A Conservative Climate Solution’: Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax

A group of Republican elder statesmen is calling for a tax on carbon emissions to fight climate change.

The group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former secretary of the Treasury, says that taxing carbon pollution produced by burning fossil fuels is “a conservative climate solution” based on free-market principles.

Mr. Baker is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Jared Kushner, the senior adviser to the president, and Gary D. Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, as well as Ivanka Trump.
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Washington state had an interesting trial balloon version of this.

Cut the sales tax, implement a carbon tax instead. Revenue-neutral. Appeal to voters' through an on-face tax cut.

Initiative was defeated by the left who argued it wasn't progressive enough. (I mean, this is Washington.)
 
jtb said:
Washington state had an interesting trial balloon version of this.

Cut the sales tax, implement a carbon tax instead. Revenue-neutral. Appeal to voters' through an on-face tax cut.

Initiative was defeated by the left who argued it wasn't progressive enough. (I mean, this is Washington.)
Click to expand...

sigh.
 
The catch, assuming it's the proposal I am thinking of, is two-fold.

- Removes all of Obama's climate policies for this to replace his administrations ideas (this may be why the left hated it)
- Reinvests the tax money into Social Security

Dealing with the environment AND helping a public program? How is this even remotely Republican in 2017?
 
Haha...i knew they were going to pull this shit. Deny global warming even though they know it's happening because it is politically expedient to do so with their uneducated religious base. Once they assumed power, they will acknowledge it and take the credit for tackling it, all while ensuring they profit from it somehow. You can't make this shit up.
 
While many Conservatives deny that climate change exists or that climate change is caused by humans, for those that have believed in either of those two things, most have favored 'Cap and Trade' policies as a possible solution.

Cap and trade is one of those weird issues where the sides sort of flip. Mainstream democrats and moderate Republicans will consider cap and trade, while farther left Democrats and farther right Republicans will be against it. Some environmentalists have been against cap and trade because it effectively creates an artificial market around the environment, which some would argue shouldn't be economically incentivised. I think cap and trade policies need work and clear regulation (like, who oversees the monetary value of carbon?), but it could be a realistic option to help slow, but not fix, climate issues.

Kinda similar to trade agreements, where somehow farther left liberals and farther right conservatives come together opposing international trade agreements, while moderate Republicans and Democrats are like "wtf?"
 
Fake news: Being Republican, they obviously meant to tax companies for not producing enough carbon dioxide.
 
jtb said:
Washington state had an interesting trial balloon version of this.

Cut the sales tax, implement a carbon tax instead. Revenue-neutral. Appeal to voters' through an on-face tax cut.

Initiative was defeated by the left who argued it wasn't progressive enough. (I mean, this is Washington.)
Click to expand...
Better is the enemy of good - Voltaire
 
The Albatross said:
While many Conservatives deny that climate change exists or that climate change is caused by humans, for those that have believed in either of those two things, most have favored 'Cap and Trade' policies as a possible solution.

Cap and trade is one of those weird issues where the sides sort of flip. Mainstream democrats and moderate Republicans will favor cap and trade, while farther left Democrats and farther right Republicans will be against it.

Kinda similar to trade agreements, where somehow farther left liberals and farther right conservatives come together opposing international trade agreements, while moderate Republicans and Democrats are like "wtf?"
Click to expand...

Sadly makes sense in the current environment. Total elimination of the moderate middle.
 
Large corporations are going to make so much off of all the deregulations they are going to pass that whatever carbon tax they implement it will likely be a drop in the ocean and will happily pay a tax on all the pollutants they are now emiting
 
Pre-tea party establishment types. Doubt the current GOP congressmen or base are particularly interested in what they have to say.
 
bodyofanamerican said:
sigh.
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Mr. X said:
Better is the enemy of good - Voltaire
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Eh, it was (according to its opponents) a badly written bill jammed through as a populist referendum. Personally, I campaigned with some local environmental groups last fall and they made a persuasive case to me that, in this case, the bill didn't meet the threshold of "good," so I voted against it.

But it certainly is an interesting case study for both sides.
 
VendettaRed07 said:
Large corporations are going to make so much off of all the deregulations they are going to pass that whatever carbon tax they implement it will likely be a drop in the ocean and will happily pay a tax on all the pollutants they are now emiting
Click to expand...

That's not how cap and trade would hopefully work. Ideally, carbon is capped at a certain amount, the price of the tax would increase if we approached that number too quickly.
 
jtb said:
Eh, it was (according to its opponents) a badly written bill jammed through as a populist referendum. Personally, I campaigned with some local environmental groups last fall and they made a persuasive case to me that, in this case, the bill didn't meet the threshold of "good," so I voted against it.

But it certainly is an interesting case study for both sides.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean my "sigh" as a personal attack by any means, btw. Just wanted to be clear. :)

Appreciate the background information, though!
 
Carbon tax is the libertarian solution too (the libertarians who understand that pollution is a negative externality and imposes real costs on those who suffer from it, not the ones who jam their fingers in their ears and figure it's somebody else's problem). You pay for your environmental damage, and the proceeds of the tax go to redressing the harm done (like paying for asthma-related medical bills).
 
Generalpsyduck said:
Its going to be a regressive tax that will target the poor and minorities.
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I don't really think that's true, or at least, it's not anymore true than Obama Administration's existing Clean Power Plan. The theory is applied to "traders" of carbon, typically when Carbon enters a trading market (e.g., when a carbon extractor sells that carbon to a another party [ExxonMobil, or the company that sells refined gas to your gas provider, etc]). These would necessarily target big businesses as they're the prime mover for introducing a carbon-emitting energy to the market.

Now, of course, all businesses will move some of that cost off to the consumer in some way, but then you could argue against almost every climate change proposal with the same argument (e.g., "CAFE standards target minorities/poor because auto-manufacturers pass that cost on to the consumer" -- sure they do to some extent, but not really), as they virtually all target major manufacturing, producers, and extractors of carbon-emitting energy.

This is almost definitely going to be opposed by Donald Trump, though. Democrats would oppose this as it would replace Obama's Clean Power Plan initiative to get through congress. President would be against it, Democrats would be against it, and I'd say a majority of middle-american Republicans would also be against it. It's dead on arrival.

But, all that being said, it's ... a tough argument to make that this targets the poor and minorities, as it primarily targets major energy producers like ExxonMobil or energy extractors like oil and gas extraction companies. We all want to oppose plans put forward by Republicans or Donald Trump, but sometimes you should read the article before before posting your reason for why you're against it.

Mr. X said:
Better is the enemy of good - Voltaire
Click to expand...

Voltaire's quote should be translatted "... the best is the enemy of good." That is to say, don't get so focused on the perfect plan that you're not able to implement a good plan. Or, as I say it at work when we're too hung up on something stupid, "Don't let great be the enemy of good."
 
bodyofanamerican said:
I didn't mean my "sigh" as a personal attack by any means, btw. Just wanted to be clear. :)

Appreciate the background information, though!
Click to expand...

Oh, I know. Believe me, I was in the exact same boat. Just figured I'd give a little more context on it.

Here are some good background links to read more on the political battle over it:

Opposition to Washington’s historic carbon tax initiative is coming from the unlikeliest of sources: It’s the only carbon tax on the ballot in the country. So why are some environmental groups fighting it?

The battle over Washington state’s proposed carbon tax has gotten even weirder
 
jtb said:
Washington state had an interesting trial balloon version of this.

Cut the sales tax, implement a carbon tax instead. Revenue-neutral. Appeal to voters' through an on-face tax cut.

Initiative was defeated by the left who argued it wasn't progressive enough. (I mean, this is Washington.)
Click to expand...

I don't think that is completely accurate. The Fossil Fuel lobby ran opposition ads. Some Environmental groups decided not to spend any money supporting it but they didn't do any active negative campaigning (besides saying they didn't support it).

So I'd argue it was the right that defeated it but the left let them.
 
How Steep will this tax be?

I've watched a few documentaries on a "Carbon Tax"

If the price is not steep enough companies will just accept it as a price of business and keep pushing forward. The penalty must be higher that money saved by ignoring clean policies by a significant amount or this won't mean anything.
 
Isn't this kind of the same as a consumption tax? Fuck over the poors whilst just cutting marginally into the fat cats profits? Whilst also making it harder for new business to grow?
 
Carbon Tax + subsidy to offset costs to the poor due to the carbon tax is the only real way to begin addressing Climate change in the US.
 
The catch is that these guys are statesmen, not politicians. They have expert policy positions and no power. I'd wait until the hyperpolarized Republicans in Congress voice any support for a carbon tax before getting my hopes up.
 
So they have no power? Yeah. This isn't going to make it anywhere. It would completely go against the current Republican agenda.
 
Cap and Trade was a Republican Plan IIRC, before they went fucking nuts.
 
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