Monday, June 23, 2014

We Need A Carbon Tax, Not Cap and Trade

Why a Carbon Tax is Better Than Obama's Cap and Trade

Kudos to Hank Paulson, late as he is, for stating explicitly that a carbon tax is what's needed. The LAST thing we need is "cap and trade", which is a regulatory shell game for grifters to loot money from the system with little benefit to show for it. 

Cap and trade is a Rube Goldberg policy approach that is designed to avoid taxes and generate profits under the fig leaf guise of cutting carbon emissions. 

What we need is a carbon tax, not another skim operation. 

"We need to craft national policy that uses market forces to provide incentives for the technological advances required to address climate change. As I've said, we can do this by placing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Many respected economists, of all ideological persuasions, support this approach. We can debate the appropriate pricing and policy design and how to use the money generated. But a price on carbon would change the behavior of both individuals and businesses. At the same time, all fossil fuel — and renewable energy — subsidies should be phased out. Renewable energy can outcompete dirty fuels once pollution costs are accounted for… A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure. This would strengthen national security by reducing the world's dependence on governments like Russia and Iran."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/why-carbon-tax-is-better-than-cap-and-trade.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

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