From The Heartland Institute.
By Joe Barnett
Tax would have funded ‘clean energy’ projects
For the second time in two years, Washington State voters rejected a proposal to tax carbon dioxide emissions.
Fifty-six percent of those voting in Washington’s midterm elections said no to a referendum that would have made the state the first in the nation to tax carbon dioxide emissions and the first government anywhere to impose the tax through a direct popular vote.
Initiative 1631 would have imposed a tax of $15 per metric ton on emissions of carbon dioxide, rising by $2 per ton each year until the state met its emissions reduction goals.
The state government had estimated the carbon dioxide tax would generate $2.2 billion in revenue in the first five years.
Slush Fund for Activists?
In contrast to California’s “cap and trade” scheme, which allows emitters to buy and sell unused credits for reducing emissions, Initiative 1631 would have imposed a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases emitted by select utilities and manufacturers and through transportation.
Technically, the proposed imposition would have been a fee under state law, because the revenue would not have been returned to taxpayers or funded general state operations. Instead, the initiative would have created a board to spend the revenue on a variety of “clean energy” projects, mass transit, and so-called environmental justice programs.
One reason the measure failed is voters do not trust politicians or environmental activists to spend the money wisely, says Todd Myers, director of the Center for the Environment at the Washington Policy Center and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, which publishes Budget & Tax News.
“In a year where voters in Washington State gave Democrats increased majorities, they also solidly rejected a big-government carbon tax,” Myers said. “Even in Washington State, the voters made it clear they don’t trust politicians or the environmental community to spend money wisely.”
Big Support from Activists
The tax initiative was widely supported by well-funded environmental activist groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The united support of environmental organizations increased the percentage of yes votes for the 2018 measure by only 4 percentage points over the 2016 measure, which lost by 60 percent to 40 percent.
The failed 2016 ballot proposal would have imposed a supposedly revenue-neutral tax on carbon dioxide emissions, with the money returned to businesses and individual taxpayers through reductions in various state taxes.
National and local environmental organizations opposed legislation proposed by Gov. Jay Inslee (D) in early 2018 to impose a tax on carbon dioxide emissions and send the revenues to the state’s general fund.
Environmental policy should emphasize market solutions, Myers says.
“The choice for good environmental policy is clear: continue to fixate on big-government programs the voters reject, or allow the free market to do more with less, creating prosperity and protecting the environment,” said Myers.
Joe Barnett is a research fellow with The Heartland Institute.
HT/The truly ever industrious Marcus
From an economics perspective, it’s always odd to me how one arrives at the carbon tax amount (per ton) and why that amount is correct. Instead of $15 a ton, why not 15-cents? There, the whole discussion, is worthless. Someone obviously had some agenda that mandated this being $15. The same person could easily come up in a decade to say they’ve found a new number of $150 being correct. Such a childish game.
This gets back to Bill Clinton’s first term when he wanted a surtax on the “rich”. Most people were thinking incomes starting at $1M, but it turned out “rich” meant $250K. It turned out taxing $1M+ incomes wouldn’t really generate that much money because there weren’t enough taxpayers in this group, so they had to ratchet it down to get enough revenue.
Same thing here. Since it’s a huge income redistribution scheme, you need big enough numbers. One of the reasons Macron’s tax increase was a whopping 23% on already way overtaxed fuel. If he had set it to 5%, there would have been grumbling but that’s about it.
I think we are finally seeing the middle class wake up to the fact they are getting screwed once again. The winners are all those involved in the boondoggles and the losers are everyone else.
I think you have forgotten Bill Clinton btu tax that was not passed. BTU or co2 tax it is all the same tax on everything.
rbabcock, the operative word is Income. When you live, up in the rarified air, as millionaires most of your wealth comes in the form of business earnings, holdings, trusts, pension funds, not as income. They pay expensive lawyers to create ways of moving their earnings into wealth and avoiding the tax man. The holding companies and trust funds purchase their big expenditures like mansions and lease their cars, planes,etc. So you would need a way to tax wealth not just income.
That isn’t going to happen because the people who live in that rarified air buy the politicians with major campaign donations and then instruct the Temple Monkeys, Congress Critters, and Puppet Potus on who to appoint to head up the Deep State Bureaucratic Agencies that make the real rules and the judicial Seats that pass the constitutional blessing on their corrupt activity. Plus they buy (aka Federal Grant) the best scientific bureaucrats that taxpayer money can buy to menace the populous with imaginary hobgoblins like Global Warm…Ahhhh we really meant Climate Change all along to frighten us into giving them more control over us and allowing them to legally (Why because some officious un-elected bureaucrat in a robe said they could?) remove our liberties along with our discretionary income.
All the noise the media makes is the misdirection part of this massive magicians trick to get the citizenry divided and fighting with each other. They are pulling this all off right before your eyes. Oh and that Clinton you speak of was a hick from Hope and now he is worth 250 Million at last reading and that is not counting the billions he and the Hillary have laundered through their Clinton foundation. And theirs is safe and secure. You can’t get at that wealth by taxing incomes.
@Bill Powers
+50
Income is how people ACCUMULATE wealth, it is different than wealth itself. Taxing income prevents more people from becoming wealthy, but does little to those already wealthy.
I basically agree. I don’t buy so much into the left-right dichotomy; I think both sides have the capacity to be pernicious (so I trust the right about as much as I trust the left.) I think this part is important: “… all along to frighten us into giving them more control over us and allowing them to legally (Why because some officious un-elected bureaucrat in a robe said they could?) remove our liberties along with our discretionary income.”
I sometimes think the whole point of this is just to frighten and confuse us so we’ll rely on authorities to lead us. Lord help us if we get along with each other and live in peace– too hard to control then.
Don132
The same bait and switch number changes went on with Shovel Ready Stimulus in which most states ended up with 5 percent of the stimulus funds going to highway departments after the con job was finished. Check with your own state agency to verify that–I have with mine. Even Pres. Obama chuckled from the podium after the success of that one. He could not hold back the laughter.
I don’t know about the other states R.G. but in my state the Obama Administration transfered 20 billion of the Trillion dollar stimulus money to shore up the Maryland State Teachers Pension Fund that was failing because of the Dodd/Frank Debacle that caused the financial Crash by forcing banks to issue unsecured mortgages and then bundling up the bad assests and selling them off To Freddie and Fannie.
They needed the Trillion dollar “Stimulus” bill to bail out state government pensions plans because there was nothing left over of the Trillion dollar TARP bill that went to keep Banks, Mortgage, insurance companies solvent.
2 trillion over two years put on the National Credit Card of the middle class taxpayers with the intent that their grand and great grandchilden will pay for it. Really nice work on the part of the puppet politicians working for the deep state that was appointed by the billionaires that own Goldman Sachs et al.
The fact is there are not enough rich people to cover spending by the federal government. At taday’s $10B + pace, confiscating Jeff Bezos’ $150B would fund the government fot 2 weeks, once. He won’t be around to rax next year. You can go down the list and still need more to fund the fiscal year.
100+Thomas. No matter how you account for it, if we took all the money, Pick a number any number (Net Worth, Money Supply, M1, M2, M3…Hike!, Loose change under the furniture Cushion) Google whatever number we like and divide the largest one by the total world population (and you can apportion by head, household, family size, matters not) All the re-distributionist in all the world are going to be sorely disappointed at how little each individual will be apportioned. And the anarchist crying out to spread the wealth don’t realize that when each citizen of the world has theirs, then they will have nothing to spend it on because the world economy will have to be ground to a halt in order to spread said wealth so we can name this insane plan “Apocalypse Now.”
Well in pragmatic terms there is little point in income taxing the poor – they don’t have any money.
By the same logic (income) tax cuts are always going to be given to the ‘rich’. This is not ripping off the poor or treating them like dirt, it is simply the hard fact that since the ‘poor’ have no income, they are not paying tax to begin with.
Hard truth boys and girls.
That is income tax. It takes money from those who have money and give it to those who don’t deserve it to waste on things we don’t really need. (/snark)
What we are seeing here however is cost of living increases.
If you were to add say a 5% tax on cake for, I don’t know, health reasons or something, then it effectively is a flat and ‘equal’ tax on all people. Problem is that if you are ‘poor’ then a cake (which you have to eat btw, cause there is no bread…) may cost you 1% of your weekly income. If you are rich it may work out to 0.1%
Then add in a tax on electricity (to help cut ‘carbon’) and a tax on fuel (to help cut ‘carbon’) and a tax on drinks (to help cut ‘fat people’) and a tax on alcohol (to help cut happy people) and ‘poor’ people suddenly find they have no disposable income while ‘rich’ people are mildly aware that they have less money to invest this year.
Now to anyone who sits down and thinks about this for a few moments all this should be obvious.
To all those who don’t you end up with yellow jackets on the streets.
It is very obvious – any tax on goods or services is a tax on the poor.
Amen to that Craig and don’t forget that the Wizard of Oz and all his minions take their cut of the tax on goods and services before the poor get their COLA on the SNAP card which always come of short of the increased cost of the goods and service so everybody loses but the swamp rats ahhh I mean bureaucrats.
Roy…$15 an hour min wage. 15 is a magic number.
http://www.indiannewslink.co.nz/the-magic-of-number-15/
OMFG! I read, write, and understand english and have for 60 years. I understood all the words, but had no idea how someone managed to put them all into a single essay.
Fifteen is important because in english, it is the first natural number spelled in seven letters? And…? How about quinze? Quince? I guess it’s only important in the english-speaking world.
“…associated with eloquence of speech and the creative aspects of music…”
Let’s hear some of those 15-bar blues. How does one write a 1/15 note?
Save me. Strike that. Shoot me. Now.
I wasn’t impressed by 15 having 3 factors: 1, 3, and 5. Also, without 2 as one of the factors, only even multiples of 15 can be equally halved.
12 has 5 factors: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. All multiples of 12 can be equally halved.
SR
Arizona voters also rejected the Tom Steyer paid ballot proposal for higher electricity rates. The proosal was to put money into his solar energy hedge funds but was defeated by 2-1 margin. Yet still voters put the chameleon wacko Sinema (D) in as Senator to replace RINO Flake over the solid (R) McSally, a combat veteran retired AF officer, and re-elected the (R) Governor Ducey.
Apparently people are smart enough to vote for their pocket books but not their more important liberties and freedoms.
Speaking of Tom Steyer “The Time For Politeness Is Over”:
Oregon dems take note-there have been a run on yellow vests in the local
stores in E Oregon. Portlandia/Multnoma- What’s for dinner?
I prefer Yellow Jackets..
As a Georgia Tech fan, I’m all in favor of more Yellow Jackets.
Interesting, if any state was going to accept this insane tax, I would have expected Washington to fall for it. I guess there is some hope after all, that not everyone has bought into the CAGW agenda.
In spite of other wacko tendencies, Washington is a relatively low-tax state: No personal income tax but there is an estate tax with a $2.6 million exemption. Compare them with their neighbor to the south Oregon (which is of course much closer to the source of infection: California). Oregon has both a personal income tax and an estate tax with a $1 million exemption.
https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/taxes/T055-S001-kiplinger-tax-map/index.php?map=&state_id=48&state=Washington
https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/taxes/T055-S001-kiplinger-tax-map/index.php?map=&state_id=38&state=Oregon
Carbon was supposed to be the “sizzle” to make taxation compelling.
They thought.
Another critical step in the popular uprising that will eventually reform the long experiment in authoritarian government.
Since this is nothing but another ‘tax and spend’ scam, the proper way to tax carbon and methane emissions is to charge politicians a carbon tax for every speech they make, and every public appearance, because any time you speak you emit CO2, never mind the CO2 produced by HVAC systems in any building where these appearances are held..
A personal methane tax is certainly worth looking at, owing to the amount of methane produced by the digestive systems of overfed politicians and the people who follow them. If they hold a “meet up” or have a public appearance where food is involved, they should be taxed for the amount of methane produced by the consumption of food and drinks, regardless of whether or not it is all used up. If it isn’t used up, it usually just gets tossed and goes into waste disposal at the local trash facility.
I’m sure anyone can see the logic behind this.. If you start at that level, maybe this silliness would slowly die away.
Sara, this is my all time favorite…
The capture CO2 at these plants…bottle it….and turn around and sell it to businesses that make carbonated drinks, greenhouses, etc….to release it back into the air
…and the plants get credit for capturing it!! LOL
How ’bout every politician have to wear a badge which shows their number?
Have each tested for CO2 concentration in their exhaled breath, and put the number on their badge.
How about your tax, plus a tax on the volume of carbon compounds in their physical makeup?
We are, after all, carbon-based organisms. All life (so far) is carbon-based.
Despite the strong efforts of biologists to try to find live organisms that are based on something other than carbon, including those in the hot chemical ponds (geysers) at Yellowstone, only carbon-based life forms have been found.
60-40 in 2016, 56-44 in 2018. This will keep getting re-introduced until ultimate passage. Of course state and local governments will exempt themselves from this tax as all their deeds are unquestioningly for the betterment of society. This is of course a tax on industry and the hayseeds just trying to make a living. Here’s an idea Washington State – why not petition to have yourself annexed into California (provided of course Oregon joins the party). The voters in California would be delighted to pass the tax for you.
The LAST thing State and local Governments will do is exempt themselves from this tax! Now they can take a percentage of their spending, and have it end up in a new fund without any legal restriction on how that money is spent! A perfect way to slush money from specific budgets into completely discretionary ones…
Charles – You are absolutely correct wrt your first two sentences. Wait for 2020 and tremble…
…JLC
People in WASHINGTON don’t trust environmental activists? My God, do we actually dare to hope that sanity is being gradually restored to the western world?
And shame on the politico bastards for trying to push it two years running. What part of “no” do they not understand?
Sara – I concur
“consumption of food and drinks”
– are any of those drinks being consumed carbonated beverages? Carbonated beverages are the kind of beverages that have the ‘pollutant’ CO2 purposely injected for consumption with no warning label.
– we know the food being consumed contains organic carbon, otherwise it wouldn’t be food
All carbon based life forms participate in the carbon cycle of life. CO2 is necessary to complete the carbon cycle.
Thomas, I think that alcohol-based beverages might have at least as much CO2 embedded in their chemistry as any carbonated beverage.
So here’s how I see it: A martini typically costs $19 in NYC, which one can assume includes the local sales tax. So to pay for the carbon tax, add $1.00 to $1.50 (depending on where you are) to the cost of the drink itself, and that should pile up a wad of cash in no time at all. Add in bar food, everything from shrimp cocktails to canapes, and at $2.50 for the carbon/methane tax, you’ve got it going on. Now, how do you get the tax paid into the tiller? The plate requires a deposit, in addition to a subsequent payment each time it’s refilled. The methane tax and carbon tax are combined for food consumption.
I’m telling you, this stuff adds up. If you have 1500 people at a political hoedown and they have to cough up cash like that every time they come to something, their votes will probably drift into a different voting zone.
These will keep happening , because the hope is that when they gt one in place the rest of the country will be follow or be made too . Well that is the hope , otherwise your industry goes over the border and its less not more tax you get.
Meanwhile a green slush found , well it is true you can never have enough on leg LGBT+ dance companies and interpretative explanation of the danger of climate change .
“tax would generate $2.2 billion in revenue in the first five years.”
Generate nothing. It would have sucked $2.2 billion out of the Washington State economy.
Liberals are the only people who believe that you can make your self richer by taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another.
That’s a good way to put it.
It destroys incentives for individuals to produce and create value, since ones reward is stolen away. It establishes a true spiral of death, such as is playing out in Venezuela.
It’s a double whammy, since it also destroys the incentive of those on the receiving end to work. Why work when the state is willing to support you?
“Environmental policy should emphasize market solutions”
It’s not a market if half the people there are only there because the state puts a gun to their heads.
And the other half are deeply deranged and believe they are saving something or other.
Oh dear. I bet hundreds of thousands of orders for yellow vests were canceled as a result. Not good for the yellow vest business.
until the state met its emissions reduction goals………
Which is impossible….so it goes on forever
“Which is impossible….so it goes on forever”
Which means it was designed to be anti-nuclear from the start but hide that fact.
Governments tend to support climate scaremongering because it justifies a new taxing scheme, and increased regulatory authority. Activists like to believe they’re saving the world and are morally superior to all us unwashed deplorables. Anti-capitalists see a way to nudge the world toward socialism. Corporations see a way to sell windmills and solar panels. Utilities see a way to increase rates. Much of the media will support whatever is the liberal ideological agenda, and sensationalism sells.
It’s a wonder we’re able to protect ourselves at all.
Small carbon taxes are not meaningful in terms of raising the price of fuel. California value of “carbon emissions” are about $190/metric ton which when translated to support for renewable fuels with low carbon intensity is in the $2/gal range. This makes CA a magnet for selling renewable fuels as there are no other places that value renewables this highly. The Renewable Fuels Standard also values renewable (called D-3 or D-7) fuels highly compared to barely renewable ethanol. Ethanol get $0.10 to$0.14/gal in RINs but synthetic diesel from cellulosic feedstocks gets $3.70/gal. With Diesel Blenders Credits included, selling “Cellulosic” diesel or jet fuel to CA gets $6.45/gal in subsidies plus the actual value of the fuel. Thus a 10% blend of “cellulosic diesel into California diesel raises the price by $0.65 over normal prices. All mandated by AB32 and pushed by CARB under the Low Carbon Fuels Standard.
There are a number of projects looking to capture these green funds with all actual costs passed off to the end consumer. Thus the very high cost of fuel in CA despite crude hovering around $50/bbl.
The city of Paradise was full of renewable fuel. That fuel takes 40 years to renew.
The initiative was akin to giving a loaded gun to the collective voter, asking them whether they want to shoot themselves and their businesses in the foot. I’m amazed at how many wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. Do they think someone else is going to have to hop.
You’d be amazed how many people have convinced themselves that taking money from those who earned it and giving it to government will actually improve the economy.
While he was president, Clinton once gave a speech in which he told a group of businessmen that he would love to support a tax cut, but he was afraid that they people wouldn’t spend the money wisely, and that would hurt the economy.
“A supposedly revenue-neutral tax on carbon dioxide emissions, with the money returned to businesses and individual taxpayers through reductions in various state taxes.” Anyone who believes that lie and votes for a tax on carbon needs to be put on suicide watch. What % of tax paid would be reduced? Who actually qualifies for a reduction?
Looks like the activists will get a large share of the tax, to do what? Build more windmills, call for more renewables, dance on the graves of taxpayers and buy more politicians? All carbon taxes are simply a scam to perpetrate a scam. Just keep voting NO!
The climate justice movement has provided the left a limitless means to pronounce their Progressive Supremacy and apply their we know best anointing to all of their demands.
Who objects to saving the planet and human race?
They’ve graduated from “tax and spend” to “tax and spend on us.”
‘Environmental policy should emphasize market solutions, Myers says.
“The choice for good environmental policy is clear: continue to fixate on big-government programs the voters reject, or allow the free market to do more with less, creating prosperity and protecting the environment,” said Myers.’
Myers absolutely doesn’t believe in markets. He doesn’t even know what they are. A tax is NOT free market.
Just like everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die….. everyone wants to save the world but no one wants to pay for it.
https://harrytodd.org
We can tell how important any given issue is to voters by whether they are willing to vote a tax increase to pay for it.
In many communities around the US, voters have voted in favor of bond issues to pay for schools when they thought schools were underfunded. In Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa Bay area), voters voted in favor of a sales tax increase to pay for transportation projects, because voters thought crowded roads was a significant problem.
So when voters vote down carbon taxes, as in Washington state, one of the greenest in the country, both politically and terrain wise, this tells us voters in even that state aren’t convinced that “fixing climate change” is either do-able, or worth the extra taxes on business.
Despite all the yammering by the Climate Alarmists (or rather, the “Common Sense Deniers”), most people just don’t believe their BS. At least, not enough to tax themselves to pay for it.
So, extrapolating the trend , at the next attempt in 2 years time it will be 52:48 and in 2022 the tax will become law. Not long to wait. Might be a good idea for Washingtonians to start saving.
Or start moving.
The lesson from Washington state and the yellow vests is that you have to hide the taxes and blame industry for higher prices. Additionally, put an unelected board in charge of it so no elected official is held accountable. Ever heard of the low carbon fuel standard? For gasoline they wrote an “aspirational” set of regulations believing that cellulosic ethanol would be commercial in a few years. It’s not. Corn based ethanol isn’t low carbon enough but sugar cane based ethanol is. So the state imports Brazilian ethanol from sugarcane and the Brazilians import US corn based ethanol or make their own corn based ethanol to fill out supply. Meanwhile, LCFS credits are at their maximum price (because industry can’t develop solutions as fast as CARB can make rules) and the state’s drivers spend 50% more on gas per gallon than the rest of the nation. Voila – higher fuel prices and no riots.
I live in Washington State and Jay Inslee is our own version of Macron. Google his confrontation with Lord Monckton and you can see what a creep we elected.
Steve O summed it up perfectly. But will any Politician other than our ex PM, Tony Abbott come right out and say as he did, It s all a load of “Crapp”. I doubt it, they might lose a vote or two. .
MJE
Since CO2 is evil, shouldn’t exhaling be taxed? /sarc
Don’t give the leftist eco-nuts any ideas!
You know, I read through the comments most of the time. Mostly good points, excellent science refuting the reported garbage, excellent, funny, pointed puns and one-liners. Excellent reasons why such-and-such a tax is fallacious and won’t work for the given green/environmental/energy proposal.
But no one attacks the elephant in the room: why ANY taxes, period?
Without taxes, NONE of this garbage could even be flitting around any “law-maker’s” or “do-gooder’s” or “philanthropic billionaire’s” brain. They only do it because we let them.
Why do we allow ourselves to be taxed? Why do otherwise sane and reasonable people believe that we need to allow ourselves to be taxed or there would be no roads, no science, no . . . anything “the government” does “for” us?
Since you all usually agree that anything the government does is neither done well nor for anyone’s real good, what is this basic cognitive dissonance?
Taxation, without all the pretty gauze, is theft. Theft, no matter who does it, is universally recognized as immoral and unethical, a crime.
Yet we fill out those papers at “tax time,” and continue to “elect” people whose only real purpose in life is to dream up yet more ways to “tax” us.
Why are we blindly continuing this stupid, most irrational, insane charade? If we all, silently, concertedly, secretly, simply stopped “paying” our ravening masters, all this garbage would simply dry up and blow away.
So really, what’s the catch? From this moment, if even only 10% of us stopped playing their game, they could do nothing — they don’t have the manpower or facilities to round all of us up and imprison us. And the more our success were leaked out to those still thinking they must comply, the fewer would continue to.
The way to defeat the beast is to stop feeding it.
All this back-and-forth about how awful environmental taxes are and would be is entertaining, but to what end? Must we all wait until the suffering gets so great there is either total slaughter of our numbers and countries, or there are ever-escalating and bloody riots to finally overthrow the beast, a la the French Revolution?
What exactly is going on that “civilized” people believe that we must be taxed — robbed by people in uniform, threatening us with guns if we dare not to comply, for people in fine suits to dictate to us that it is our moral duty to let them do it to us — in order to have nice things? Why really do we?
As I mentioned here after election day, our betters will not leave this alone. Jay Inslee and both chambers of the Washington Legislature hard at work on more “solutions.”
From yesterday (12/10/18):
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/after-carbon-fee-defeat-inslee-rolls-out-new-clean-energy-proposals/
Btw, the comment thread for the ST article is pretty interesting when one considers the readership is generally left-of-center. (Sort by Top Comments to clear out the nonsense.)
The people decided not to embrace plan A, but there’s about 400 other plans behind that ready to go. This plan B is ready to go and it can pass this year,” Inslee said at a news conference.
https://www.thenewstribune.com/latest-news/article222909995.html
Get ready for moar.
What always gets me with reports like this is that no one in the media wants to discuss the two very conflicting points.
– The tax is to force emission reductions
– The tax is expected to raise huge amounts of money
This is not just a ‘carbon tax’ problem, it comes up whenever there is some money grab hidden as important social reform. A few years back in Oz the then ‘Left’ government discovered that there was a loop hole that allowed Ready to Drink (RTD) cans of alcohol (your Jacks and Cola type pre mixed cans) paid less tax. “OH NO!” they cried. “This will encourage binge drinking, esp with young women!” and suddenly for the good of public health this loophole was closed and it was good because it would reduce binge drinking… and also raise huge amounts of money.
Nope. Sorry. If the tax actually worked in stopping consumers buying these products then it would raise sod all money. Anything else is a lie.
It’s like any “sin” tax (alcohol, tobacco, etc) the money coming in depends on people partaking of the “sin” being taxed. And make no mistake, the government wants as many $$$ coming in as they can get (and spend). So taxing to reduce behavior is a lie. Any behavior reduction that might occur is a mere side-effect to the real purpose which is to raise revenue.
I posted almost the same, elsewhere on this site. But it’s relevant here too. In Washington state (USA) many classes (rich and poor) have fossil-fuel vehicles. I have lived in the state six decades. THE ATLANTIC: “Will Washington State Voters Make History on Climate Change? The state could be the first in the union to adopt a carbon price by ballot” published AUGUST 2018 https://www.theatlantic.com/…/washington-state…/567523/
This November, voters in Washington State may do what no group of people—IN OR OUTSIDE the United States—has done before.They will vote on whether to adopt a carbon fee, an aggressive policy to combat climate change that charges polluters for the right to emit carbon dioxide and other potent greenhouse gases.Their decision will reverberate far beyond the Olympic Peninsula. If the measure passes, Washington will make history, becoming not only the first state in the union to adopt a type of policy called a carbon tax—but also the first government anywhere to do so by ballot referendum.”
MY COMMENT ON OUTCOME OF FAILURE OF INITIATIVE 1631 IN MY STATE: MOST of our Washington State Government won’t stop trying every way possible (with mass propaganda using Environmental Elite=clean energy angel investors money for ad-campaigns ) to pass[ a.] Ballot Initiative (ONE MENTIONED ABOVE failed in November election) OR {b} STATE LEGISLATION. [c.} An unconstitutional Executive Rule-making called the “Clean Air Rule” (was thrown out in state court in 2017). State policy-makers and CO2 environmental activists want to create an “eco-tax” here, one way or another. When the buck-stops-here, in citizen’s wallets, they may react as the middle-class with cars did in France over the French “ECO-TAX”. WASHINGTON STATE SUMMARY: In 2016, the voters of the state of Washington voted on a carbon tax, Initiative 732. It secured only 41 percent of the vote. This was a “revenue neutral” tax, meaning the revenue raised by the carbon tax would be returned to citizens in the form of reductions in other taxes. This approach could appeal to conservatives who worry that a carbon tax might become a pretext for new taxation and a larger government. I-732 sought to build a bipartisan coalition by attracting the pro-environment conservative vote. But it failed to draw in sufficient numbers of conservative voters and, at the same time, lost a sizable liberal vote, given the intense opposition from mainstream environmental and social justice groups…
In reaction, Governor Inslee had his Department of Ecology write a “Clean Air Rule” and try adopt it by publication in the State Register, which “Rule” was quickly challenged in court (state) and found unconstitutional..
Then next the Governor used mainstream environmental, labor and social justice as his proxies to propose a revised version of the prior carbon tax, the new one being Initiative 1631. This would generated roughly a billion dollars of new revenue, which would then be used to fund new projects (the vagueness of how those would be chosen was ASTOUNDING< crony capitalism screamed all over the opaqueness of the lengthy Initiative 1631 small-print). Allegedly, the $$ would be used to mitigate climate change, such as mass transit and renewable energy, along with assistance to poor communities hurt by increased energy costs. Gov. Jay Inslee VERY actively campaigned for the Initiative.His big political supporters are clean energy & green technology investors and "ECO" Foundations, unsurprisingly.