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And before you claim that's a trick being perpetrated by big oil, go ahead and do the same experiment at home.
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Greg Mankiw supports a carbon tax.
- Thread starter Stewart
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And before you claim that's a trick being perpetrated by big oil, go ahead and do the same experiment at home.
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No. A carbon tax is the PERFECT mechanism to do this.
Hate taxes? Fine. Rebate it back to people based upon energy usage. Hate deficits? Use the tax to cover it.
The tax will drive the market much more efficiently to more efficient and alternative energy usage faster than any other method. It's similar to cap and trade, which worked so rapidly for SO2 emissions it became obsolete faster than anyone ever imagined.
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a regressive tax is not a perfect mechanism; it's simply the only one that anyone has come up with, and others who support ending oil are emotionally attached to it. i see other ways to solve the problem.
personally, i support a national initiative to replace our entire energy model in twenty years. we dedicate a NASA-type agency to this moonshot, announce it publicly, and then get to work with public / private partnerships. what the private can't or won't do, the public will, and we start a massive upgrade of our entire electrical grid immediately to aid the transition. the new grid is nuclear and renewables, and will move us off of coal. meanwhile, the new agency is generating new transportation solutions, and the market picks the best one. we pay for it through the general fund instead of putting it on the backs of the poor and middle class who are just trying to get to work and keep their houses warm. makes infinitely more sense than enacting a stupid carbon tax and then waiting for a market-only solution provided by those who are most invested in the status quo.