Lance Wallace writes in Tips and Notes:
The Congressional Budget Office has released an analysis of the effects of a carbon tax.
At $20 a ton. they estimate about $1.2 trillion in revenues over a 10-year period. A money quote for me is:
“Without accounting for how the revenues from a carbon
tax would be used, such a tax would have a negative effect
on the economy. The higher prices it caused would
diminish the purchasing power of people’s earnings,
effectively reducing their real (inflation-adjusted) wages.
Lower real wages would have the net effect of reducing
the amount that people worked, thus decreasing the overall
supply of labor. Investment would also decline, further
reducing the economy’s total output.”
The CBO goes on to soften this by saying that certain ways of spending the revenue (e.g., reducing deficits or marginal tax rates) might result in a net benefit. But just returning the revenues to the low-income homes most affected by the rise in cost of electricity (16%; range 7% (California) to 27% (Illinois, West VA, etc.)) would not decrease the total cost of the carbon tax.
Report here http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44223_Carbon_0.pdf
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Well here you go; this is what the entire CAGW scam has been about all along.Did either he U.S. or European Union spend their last 1.2 Trillion dollars wisely? Does anyone really think it’s a good idea to give them another 1.2 Trillion to squander?
Well I suppose it’ll keep a few thousand souls employed, but totally non-productive.
I’d consider supporting carbon taxes if they were replacing other taxes rather than adding to them. Governments would then be demonstrating good faith in taxpayers and in climate science by *not* turning using green policies to grab more of our money.
Governments spending tax revenue on picking green winners by subsidising whoever lobbies them the most isn’t needed – the effect of applying a consumption tax that people can reduce the cost of by finding greater efficiencies would be enough to nudge the population in this supposedly correct direction.
What was that thing they talked about in the Cold War stand-off?
MAD – mutually assured destruction? What we have now are these games of race-to-the-bottom, musical chairs … already there are whole countries that seem unlikely to survive.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44223_Carbon_0.pdf
Congressional report says:
“Fossil fuels currently account for roughly 90 percent of all energy used in the United States, so taxing them would impose costs on the economy … ….… (low income) generally spend a larger percentage of their income on emission-intensive goods. Similarly, workers and investors in emission-intensive industries, who would see the largest decrease in demand for their products, would be likely to bear relatively large burdens as the economy adjusted to the tax. Finally, areas of the country where electricity is produced from coal—the most emission-intensive fossil fuel per unit of energy generated—would tend to experience larger increases in electricity prices than other areas would. … ….Given the inherent uncertainty of predicting the effects of climate change, and the possibility that it could trigger catastrophic effects, lawmakers might view a carbon tax as a reflection of society’s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of potentially very expensive damage in the future. “
How does a carbon tax that destroys jobs in the US in any way stop climate ‘change’ which is not a problem any way? China is starting up two new coal plants per week. India is starting up one new coal plant per week. Chinese total yearly emissions of CO2 are now 30% higher than US total yearly CO2 emissions. The entire developing world is developing. The developing world will not accept carbon capping rules unless the Western countries pay to enable the developing countries to convert their countries to nuclear power (soft energy does not significantly reduce CO2 emissions when simple unbiased analysis is used, nuclear is the only viable alternative). The Western countries do not have sufficient funds to pay to abruptly change to nuclear power for their own country little on to pay for nuclear power plants in developing and third world countries.
Comment:
It appears there is a paradigm shift occurring among the warmists. This film which is co-sponsored by CNN (the 24/7 climate alarmism channel) includes facts to support the assertion that nuclear energy is the only possible solution if there is a climate crisis. Further support for a paradigm shift is a November, 2012 published book by a mainstream warmist Oxford professor that states over and over again that soft energy (solar, wind, and biofuel) has not significantly reduce CO2 emissions in Western countries if the carbon content of imported goods is included and has not reduced world CO2 emissions. He notes the assertion that soft energy is not the solution is gaining traction among warmist academics. If anyone has a chance to see this film could they please write a review and summary of its arguments?
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/videos/environmentalists-go-pro-nuclear-in-pandoras-promise-trailer-20130430
Your headline says: “…US carbon tax will generate $1.2 trillion…” No it won’t, tax doesn’t generate anything, it just takes it from someone else. Politicians use such terminology because they can’t discriminate between creating and stealing.
Correct. Taxes REMOVE income from the private sector. Deprives it. Robs it, if you will. And the job of citizens isn’t to make the government into a successful business. The US federal government should always be in deficit. That assures that the private sector (business, households, and state/local governments) are in surplus. [Well, this isn’t actually sector analysis where the state/local would be part of the government, but it’s still the truth.] The US monetary system is a CLOSED SYSTEM. Because the US federal government creates its own currency, it should never be in surplus, otherwise, the private sector will be in deficit as it was under Clinton where everyone was blinded by the “surplus” and borrowing from the banks because the private sector’s wages weren’t sufficient to meet expenses.
Taxing “carbon” is a horrible idea, regardless of how the revenues might be used. Raising energy prices is like throwing a lead weight to an economy, killing businesses or forcing them overseas. People lose jobs, and spending declines, causing further job loss. Essentially, it causes recession. Those who are considering this diabolical plan are nothing but traitorous scaliwags who should be tarred and feathered. At the very least, they need to be thrown out of office next election.
Carbon tax merely shifts the private sector which supports itself and the government to the public sector which to date has proved spectacularly UNselfsupporting.
To wit: the NYC 2013 budget has $70B in spending supported by $50B in tax revenue, despite the usual taxes and a city income tax, yet the Staten Island Ferry is free. The balance is made up with state and federal aid, debt, and bogus accounting.
T
they estimate about $1.2 trillion in revenues over a 10-year period…..
…I estimate we’ll all be broke way before then
The people who can’t pay their electric bills are already lined up at charities. The charities don’t have enough to help either. Adding a carbon tax won’t help. It will just add to the decline.
1.2 trillion more ripped out of the economy and given to government who will spend it all on retirements.
This will rip another million jobs out of the economy which has already lost 12 million jobs since democrats took both houses in 2007.
I’ll bet diamonds aren’t included in the “carbon” tax. The Hollywood elite has fought hard for this green, “carbon” taxing political ideology. They need reward.
These green(red) idiots don’t know sh!t from shinola,
I mean carbon from carbon dioxide.
Many project engineers realize that projections of costs are always low-balled by 50% or more versus real-world costs as calculated at the end of the project lifetime, and projections of benefits are always inflated by 100% or more. The Cost/Benefit ratio ends up 4x as high as pitched by Marketing.
In the case of a Carbon Tax, the Net Benefit is 0, so the C/B ratio is essentially infinite.
Here in Australia where Gillard’s “proice ohn carbohn” is applied to the top 250 “polluters”, it was to be the top 500 but somehow that list got severely “adjusted”. Two of these “top polluters” are Snowy Hydro and Hydro Tasmania, many are local councils and hospitals.
Ian H says:
May 31, 2013 at 12:40 am
” You guys have borrowed a truly ridiculous amount of money mostly from the savings of poor people in China – people who are not exactly flush with cash to begin with. What – did you think you would never have to pay it back?”
WRONG. China holds only 8.1% of the U. S. debt. Almost 66% of the debt is owed to ourselves.
History becomes legend, legend becomes myth. Stop spreading myths.
Ian H says:
…
What – did you think you would never have to pay it back?
———————
While Tom in Florida is correct, let me wander slightly off topic and say Yes Ian, there is a substantial block of the U.S. population (possibly more than half) that thinks precisely that. They are mistaken; the U.S. will ultimately pay, one way or the other. Destroying our economy with carbon taxes is hardly the way to deal with our debt however.
More Keynesian madness. Take a dollar from Walmart, who earns a whopping 3.5% profit on it, and give it to Solyndra who has a 100% loss on it. Change the costs of energy in a way that forces people to use higher cost sources. Refuse to permit improvements like new pipelines. Wonder why no jobs and moribund economic outlook. All in a day’s work for Washington (and Brussels too).
Revenue bills must originate in the US House of Representatives which is currently controlled by Republicans. Many Democrats won’t support it either. Such bill will never get out of Committee. It’s DOA.
policycritic says:
May 31, 2013 at 3:36 am
The US federal government should always be in deficit. That assures that the private sector (business, households, and state/local governments) are in surplus.
===================
over time this will drive the purchasing power of the US dollar to zero.
The only science that is settled is that we are being screwed by the group think left.
Folks, the real story here is that if the government can convince people to pay a “carbon tax” for a non-problem like “global warming”, this will open the floodgates for taxing everything and anything not deemed “acceptable” by the government. Get ready for an “obesity tax on food”, a “guns/ammo tax”, a “GPS-based mileage tax on your car/boat/motorcycle”…
More proof that this scam is about the revenue and the control and has nothing to do with science. But it also proves that our politicians are idiots. Can you generate $1.2 trillion in new tax revenues without creating a $1.2 trillion hit in the economy? Would the resulting drop in the economy also create a drop in revenue. Would this then feedback into an additional drop in the economy followed by a additional drop in revenue followed by an additional drop in the economy ad infinitum? Can you simply tax people an additional $1.2 trillion without negative consequences? Our peoblem in this country is our politicians are idiots and they are dishonest. AND our voters are uninvolved and unaware. We will continue to get the same results unless we wake up and throw the bums out.
Remember folks to look at the dollars and time period. $1.2 trillion over 10 years, that’s $120 billion per year. Now since our annual deficit is currently over $1 trillion per year, there is no way this additional tax will be applied to anything but additional spending. In order to pay down the national debt we would have to have budget surpluses each year of $1 trillion for about 20 straight years. Headline: It ain’t gonna happen.
The only salvation will be the asteroid Apophis hitting the Earth in 2029 and letting the survivors start over, whether it be humans or some other species (my money is on some other species).
Scarface says:
May 31, 2013 at 12:04 am
“In Europe we suffer from all the redgreen experiments and taxes. Please take note of the failures. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are values at risk. Don’t let it happen as we did. This will fundamentally change your country, for the worst.”
That it has even been contemplated in the USA is highly dangerous, a peek into a future that becomes possible after initial resistance is broken down. Hansen has called his socialist philosophy “Centrist” in his calling for a new party.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/30/climate-craziness-of-the-week-james-hansen-calls-for-new-political-party-to-combat-climate-change/
This is the kind of propaganda we see, for example, when the term “Democratic” is made part of the countries name: Democratic Republic of the Congo or the evil Deutsche Demokratische Republik or used in the name of a political party: the oxymoron “Social Democrats” (in Europe), the “New Democratic Party” (in Canada) and to a growing degree the “The Democrats”. These protesteth-too-much names are intended to be a sugar-coating. Imagine what Hansen’s party would be doing against the will of the vast majority.