Hmm, what would be his “no tax pledge”? That he wouldn’t raise taxes on people making less than $400k a year. Which has morphed into families at $400k, individuals at $200k. And Warmists think this is a problem, as they want Everyone Else but themselves taxed
How Biden’s No-Tax Pledge Could Sink His Climate Change Initiative
Nowhere is President Biden’s ambitious policy agenda more in conflict than in his triple aim of funding a major infrastructure initiative, attacking climate change, and never raising taxes on households making less than $400,000. He has a terrific opportunity to achieve the first two promises, but he cannot if he sticks to that no new tax pledge.
Last week, my TPC colleague Len Burman blogged about why Biden’s no new taxes pledge is such a bad idea. This week, my colleague Thornton Matheson described how Congress could use energy taxes, such as a carbon tax, to help pay for Biden’s ambitious domestic spending agenda. And The Washington Post recently endorsed a carbon tax to fund Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan. But the president prefers instead to raise taxes on multinational corporations and, perhaps later, on high-income households.
Say, I wonder who would pay for these carbon taxes?
If you polled economists of all ideological persuasions, you’d find overwhelming support for a carbon tax. By taxing “bads†rather than goods, it could significantly reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change. And, depending on how it is designed, it could raise a substantial amount of revenue to pay for clean water, more public transit, and better roads (though the latter may also conflict with his climate change goals).
If you polled citizens, and explained exactly what would happen with carbon taxes, how many would support them when they understand that their own lives and money will be effected significantly? And our system of government is designed that they can’t go all Fascist in declaring things “bad” that aren’t. There’s a heck of a lot of difference between fossil fuels and, say, heroin. Nor should Government be regulating to modify behavior for things that are not actually bad. Heck, some would argue that they shouldn’t, at least at the federal level, be regulating things like heroin. If dumb asses want to do it, let them be dumbasses. Their power would be to stop it from being imported and crossing state lines.
But, as the president himself would say, here’s the deal: No serious carbon tax can exempt roughly 98 percent of households from a tax increase. While the president has made fighting climate change one of his top long-term priorities, he has effectively precluded a carbon tax—arguably the single most effective tool to accomplish this goal.
Funny how it doesn’t mention what percentage should be taxed, eh?
By itself, a carbon tax would reduce after-tax incomes on all households that use carbon-based goods and services—gas for their vehicles, plastic containers, airplane rides, most electricity. In effect, it would raise taxes on everybody, except those very few who have managed to live completely off the grid.
Max Herman is letting the reality out of the bag. He then goes on to note a few of the ideas where a portion of the taxes are refunded back to citizens. Not all, of course. Not noted is that this makes citizens even more reliant on government, where so many will be appreciative instead of saying “you nimrod cultists raised my cost of living and I’m supposed to be indebted to your charitably? GFYS.”
