The Costs of Climate Change: Risks to the U.S. Economy and the Federal Budget

Ways and Means, Economic and Health Consequences of Climate Change,May 15, 2019
House Budget, The Costs of Climate Change: Risks to the U.S. Economy and the Federal Budget,  June 11, 2019
Energy Taxes from September 2012, December 2012, and June 2016

Carbon tax advocates propose subsidies to the poor, however the best route for  is a subtraction VAT with offsets paid to individual workers and their families. Plutocrats will not agree to it unless the alternative IS government actions, not just requirements but temporary seizure and government cleanup, paid for by the polluters themselves.

The most basic step to at least get wealthier taxpayers on board (including the upper-middle class) is to cap flood insurance benefits to a level where beach houses properties  can no longer be insured. Even that small step could never be enacted. Too many donors have beach houses.  Our economic system is the problem. Until we move to something more cooperative, the well-off will turn their economic power into political power.

Without a technical solution, (like fusion, which Koch et all are slow rolling) all the incentives in the world will not stop plutocrats from stopping every attempt at regulating emissions unless people start dying from the air, as they are in China and did in Pennsylvania from the smog. The river had to be actually burning in Cleveland before anything was done. Expect no less, which is why the hurricanes are coming in handy now.

Polluters will only accept carbon taxes as an alternative to direct regulation. Indeed, if we dropped fuel efficiency standards and imposed carbon taxes instead, I suspect that car makers and the energy industry would jump on board. Of course, some level of regulation, like some level of social welfare, helps save business owners from themselves. Indeed, one need only remember the smog that blanketed Beijing during their Olympics to see what happens from minimal regulation.

 A carbon tax will likely not fix Chinese pollution, but I bet that if real abatement were demanded, the Party-Industrial Complex and its American enablers would jump on it. Of course, their worst nightmare is a carbon tax enforced on the carbon they release in China in making goods for export, including coal. Worse yet for them would be international air quality standards, although to date sovereignty stops at the border while capitalism does not. This allows Americans to benefit from dirty Chinese air. Until the air is universally clean, excess carbon dioxide looks like a mere fad.

 Any income remediation would also need to cross borders, because we benefit from their pollution and any loss of Chinese worker income from carbon or pollution taxes. Either way, an American value added tax with a carbon add-on could be useful as well as subtraction VAT/Net Business Receipts Taxes to distribute family income supplements, which are more essential than simply offsetting carbon or pollution taxes. The time is past for us to buy cheaper goods here while the children of Chinese peasants (both in industry and on the farm) suffer.

 We have updated the four-part tax reform plan, which now includes a carbon tax or Carbon Value Added Tax (for greater visibility). Our treatment of energy taxation are included in Attachment One.