Obama May Levy Carbon Tax to Cut the U.S. Deficit, HSBC Says
By Mathew Carr – Bloomberg News
Barack Obama may consider introducing a tax on carbon emissions to help cut the U.S. budget deficit after winning a second term as president, according to HSBC Holdings Plc.
A carbon tax starting at $20 a ton of carbon dioxide equivalent and rising at about 6 percent a year could raise $154 billion by 2021, Nick Robins, an analyst at the bank in London, said today in an e-mailed research note, citing Congressional Research Service estimates.
“Applied to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2012 baseline, this would halve the fiscal deficit by 2022,” Robins said.
h/t to WUWT reader “dp”
“halve the fiscal deficit by 2022”
Interesting.
It’s an Obamination. The DOW Jones dropped over 300 points today. With proposed higher taxes, expect more unemployment and a flight of Capital. I sold almost all my stocks over the last month as I expected an Obamdepression if he won another term. Obama has no worries about getting reelected so he doesn’t have to play Mr Popular anymore. He can try to implement all his left wing ideals which will lead to economic poverty, increased energy costs, more homeless, anger, anxiety and more personal and government debt. And how do you solve such unsurmountable problems? Same way as always. Go to war. Hope it doesn’t happen, but that is how it has always worked. CAGW will then just be a sidebar in the historical notes. I hope I am wrong. I live in a rural area in relative security. Those in cities are going to have a tough time regardless of whether I am right or wrong. Interesting times.
How is Obama going to get a proposed carbon tax into legislation with the Republican controlled House? I don’t believe that such a proposal has much chance of approval.
If a carbon tax were implemented in the US, would a business that sells wood stoves and wood do well?
jknapp says:
November 7, 2012 at 9:37 am
We have to reduce the deficit at some point. We borrowed the money and it needs to be paid back.
Says who, and why should we? This “money” was created out of thin air by private bankers, most of whom aren’t even resident in the US, and lent at interest to the federal government thanks to the outsourcing of this Constitutional power under the (unratified) Federal Reserve Act of 1913. It’s a debt-based, fiat currency system in which the currency is debt, hence it can not and will not be paid back. So why bother? Do you also propose that we “pay back” the trillions in phony debt racked up by banks and other financial institutions deregulated under Clinton with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act?
Wayne Delbeke says: ”It’s an Obamination. The DOW Jones dropped over 300 points today. With proposed higher taxes, expect more unemployment and a flight of Capital.”
Poor people vote democrats -> he will produce more of them -> next election, more people will vote for them… smart move on his behalve.. In Greece, the union bosses / Red Brigade were for borrowing a lot – now those union bosses are demonstrating against austerity and getting even more support
Probably not, but people who sell axes, chain saws, and wood splitters may. Unintended consequences at its best.
Gail Combs says:
November 7, 2012 at 5:52 pm
HSBC — formerly the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation is a Chinese bank. Does that information help?
No, Gail, it isn’t a Chinese bank. HSBC was founded by British opium traffickers such as Keswick, Matheson, and Jardine to launder their opium and heroin funds. The firm has a long and sordid history of drug running and money laundering up to the Vietnam War and the present day.
One would think that, given the Chinese aversion to the Western powers that visited decades of mercantile imperialism via force and unequal treaties, drugging their populace with opium, and forcing two Opium Wars on them, they are not likely to go along with any carbon tax schemes proffered by HSBC.
I am not a professional economist, but the Carbon Tax and 100% Dividend plan seems fair and appropriate to this economic lay person. An important aspect of it is how it might influence other countries in following our lead – assuming the USA is still an economic world power. Other countries would not like us to collect the Carbon Tax on untaxed goods imported from them and would install their own Carbon Tax so that they collected that revenue. I don’t know of a better way to influence other countries.
I also hope that we do not prevent the EPA from doing their job. The EPA, however, can only set standards and reduce emissions within the USA. Thus, we also need another approach to AGW that has leverage over other countries so that we are not put into a financial disadvantage. That is provided by a carbon tax and carbon duty on untaxed imports.
REPLY: Tell you what, since you like it, you test it first. Charge yourself an appropriate tax, send it here, we’ll put it to good use. After two years of paying it, you can decide if you think it is fair. Like any tax, no refunds – Anthony
Larry Hamlin says:
November 7, 2012 at 7:18 pm
He doesn’t need Congress… or the Legislature at all. The EPA, a “is an agency of the United States federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations.” A part of the Executive Branch, it was brought in to being December 2, 1970 by Executive Order which was later ratified by the House and the Senate.
In short, they legally can do what they please within their purview and there is not a thing that Congress can do about it, other than bleat like sheep and try to get whatever it is overturned.
So… call it a “fine” or charge for a permit, and you have your instant tax… with out it being called a “tax.”
The only other option is the Judiciary, who has a tendency to rewrite stuff as a tax that is still not called a tax by the executive branch… and which was never passed as a tax by the Legislative…. who has the only constitutional authority to levy a tax.
Either way, they get what they want.
Welcome to the Tyranny.
You have to hand it to them, despite the planning of the founding fathers who organized our structure of government so that it was more resistant to falling into a tyranny as pure democracies do (as described in Plato’s Republic), they managed to put a de-facto tyranny in place.
The privileged government class who enjoy the fruits of our labors and dictate to us what we can and can’t do.
To Theo Goodwin,
Yes, businesses that sell woodstoves should do better. This is because the combustion of biological carbon (such as wood) causes no increase in atmospheric CO2. This is because it is “OK” to recycle bio carbon which would recycle anyway. That is, if one does not burn wood, it would rot and turn to CO2 anyway very quickly on geological time scale. Thus, there would be no Carbon Tax associated with these natural sources of biological carbon. The Fee would be assigned only to the extraction of fossilized carbon, which if left undisturbed would remain in the ground forever.
Grimsrud,
“Fee” = tax. QED
ericgrimsrud;
Yes, businesses that sell woodstoves should do better. This is because the combustion of biological carbon (such as wood) causes no increase in atmospheric CO2.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unless you burn the wood faster than it can grow which is exactly what would happen because the energy demands of our current world population far outstrip the ability of the biosphere to produce sufficient wood. The world’s forests would be denuded in a matter of years and we’d be burning straw and dung in those wood stoves. Wood stoves were obsoleted by coal for exactly that reason, we were cutting down the forests for fuel faster than they could grow, and that was when the population of the earth was measured in hundreds of millions, not billions.
Do you even pause for a single moment to think things through before shooting your mouth off?
ericgrimsrud says:
November 7, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I am not a professional economist, but the Carbon Tax and 100% Dividend plan seems fair and appropriate to this economic lay person.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Having repeatedly demonstrated in thread after thread that you don’t understand physics, biology, statistics, or climate science in general, and that you spout drivel in support of AGW theory that even IPCC AR4 disagrees with, and you don’t understand that they disagree with you when the actual information showing that is provided to you, it should come as no shock that you don’t understand economics either.
ericgrimsrud;
Other countries would not like us to collect the Carbon Tax on untaxed goods imported from them and would install their own Carbon Tax so that they collected that revenue. I don’t know of a better way to influence other countries.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They would do no such thing. What they would do instead is sue your butts off in American courts and they would win. You sere Eric, the United States of America has signed numerous trade agreements such as NAFTA that make it illegal to do any such thing. You not only don’t understand science or economics, it turns out that you don’t understand the world’s legal system or that of your own country’s.
It might make more sense to start listing the things you have demonstrated an understanding of rather than the things you’ve demonstrated that you don’t, much shorter list, saves time and pixels.
davidmhoffer says:
November 7, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Accurate assessment. Grimsrud is a fool.
I believe HSBC is involved in the Aussie carbon tax too somewhere.
Fancy voting for a man who raised the national debt 55% in 4 year with ObamaCare to come, makes you wonder what will happen when the gravy-train of expectations runs over the financial cliff of reality.
I think the EPA estimated that to monitor emissions over 250 tons it would have to increase its bureaucracy by a factor of 140. Not happening.
corr: over 140 tons/annum …
Corr corr: over 240 tons/annum …
Geez, a reflexive Muphry event! I’m impressed.
Skeptik says:
November 7, 2012 at 9:55 pm
“Greece”
Oh, Lord, for edit!!
Corr corr corr: over 250 tons/annum …
Words fail me. Obviously.
“A carbon tax starting at $20 a ton of carbon dioxide equivalent and rising at about 6 percent a year could raise $154 billion by 2021″
========
How can a tax raise $154 billion? Does a tax create wealth by adding value? If not, the the $154 billion is simply money taken out of one pocket and placed in another. Typically taken out of the pockets of the poor and placed into the pockets of the rich, under the notion of “doing good”. Those creating the tax do very well indeed.
Sounds like Obama has been talking to Australia’s grasping green-left Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. I recommend you guys work out some way of cutting communications before she whispers more sweet nothings in his easily seduced ear.