Carbon tax with national dividend

[Financial.Velociraptor]

Thoughts?

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/

[Chris22]

“Minus administrative fees”.

I don’t trust our government to not fuck it up. How long before grift and general fuckery means the administrative fees are more than the rebate?  You think the government is going to handle that much money going through their grimey little fingers without taking an ever-bigger piece of the pie, Social Security style?  Nah.

[PDXTabs]

[seattlecyclone]

It's past time for this. Carbon emissions are creating problems that will be expensive to fix. The obvious market-oriented solution to this problem is to estimate how much it's going to cost the rest of us to deal with a marginal ton of carbon going into the atmosphere, and tax emissions by that much. If we have that tax in place and burning that fuel still looks like the cheapest way to achieve your goals, go ahead and keep doing it, with full knowledge that you've paid your fair share of the remediation costs.

[maizefolk]

I think it's a great idea.

A carbon tax gets the biggest cuts in emissions for the least economic pain.

And refunding the tax back to people avoids accusations of hurting the poor (on average it'd modestly reduce inequality) and it creates a large built in political constituency with an incentive to vote for politicians who promise to protect or even raise the carbon tax in order to protect or increase the rebate.

[AccidentialMustache]

I don't dislike the idea but I do experience irony that the payment is written for a household of 4. So if you have more children (likely the most carbon emitting thing your average non-billionaire can do), you get more of the carbon tax? Feels a bit at odds with itself.

[lost_in_the_endless_aisle]

I don't dislike the idea but I do experience irony that the payment is written for a household of 4. So if you have more children (likely the most carbon emitting thing your average non-billionaire can do), you get more of the carbon tax? Feels a bit at odds with itself.

Well here is the logical outcome of that sort of thinking. On the other hand, having humans exist in the future is the only hope the earth has of not having its oceans boiling in 500 million years.

[Kris]

It’s an idea whose time has come… circa 2000.

[Shane]

Totally on board. Let's do it.

[wenchsenior]

Absolutely. At this point I would be ecstatic if we would just do SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

[talltexan]

Is this same thing that was on the ballot in Washington State a few years ago?

[maizefolk]

Is this same thing that was on the ballot in Washington State a few years ago?

That was also a carbon tax, but it was going to go into the state budget instead of generating checks that would have gone out to all the state residents.

It did include new welfare program that would have been targeted to about one in six of Washington State's households. But the politics of targeted welfare are different (and generally much less popular).

[sonofsven]

Anyone run the calculator in the linked article?
-$3/mo for me, meaning it will cost me $3/mo.
Interesting to see other's results.

[Kris]

Anyone run the calculator in the linked article?
-$3/mo for me, meaning it will cost me $3/mo.
Interesting to see other's results.

Mine came about to about the same, -$2.

[ChpBstrd]

It seems like a well thought-out proposal. I think I saw a survey at one point where 95% of economists agreed that if you want to disincentivize a behavior, tax it. Yet, this isn't a tax because it comes back to taxpayers. Even better.

“Minus administrative fees”.

I don’t trust our government to not fuck it up. How long before grift and general fuckery means the administrative fees are more than the rebate?  You think the government is going to handle that much money going through their grimey little fingers without taking an ever-bigger piece of the pie, Social Security style?  Nah.

The government already manages about a hundred tax breaks and various credits simply by adding lines and formulas to tax forms. I imagine the nuts and bolts of administering this would be no different, and it's a relatively simple way to reallocate incentives, even if the sum of all these tweaks adds up to very complex tax forms.

The people who lose are those who fail to file taxes - e.g. the very poor, the disorganized, the mentally ill or incarcerated, teenagers, hospitalized people, low-IQ individuals, the elderly in nursing homes, people who move and have paper checks mailed to old addresses, etc. So I'm less worried about government incompetence than I am about individual incompetence. People already leave billions of dollars in tax refunds on the table by not filing. It's the price of illiteracy or living in chaos.

[GuitarStv]

It was the only way the Liberal party in Canada could implement a carbon tax (not that it stopped our right wing politicians from fighting it tooth and nail).

[BicycleB]

Very much for this.

[Fishindude]

“Minus administrative fees”.

I don’t trust our government to not fuck it up. How long before grift and general fuckery means the administrative fees are more than the rebate?  You think the government is going to handle that much money going through their grimey little fingers without taking an ever-bigger piece of the pie, Social Security style?  Nah.

This is pretty much my opinion also.
How about we require them to to remove two existing regs or taxes for every new one they initiate?

[BicycleB]

“Minus administrative fees”.

I don’t trust our government to not fuck it up. How long before grift and general fuckery means the administrative fees are more than the rebate?  You think the government is going to handle that much money going through their grimey little fingers without taking an ever-bigger piece of the pie, Social Security style?  Nah.

This is pretty much my opinion also.
How about we require them to to remove two existing regs or taxes for every new one they initiate?

Trust is an individual decision, but it's better to try saving the environment than to guarantee failure by not trying. This is a situation that calls for a nation-sized Optimism Gun.

Fwiw, the grimy-fingers-taking-a-bigger-slice premise is incorrect afaik. The slice of pie required for Social Security administrative costs was a remarkably low 2.2% back in the 1950s. It's gotten smaller and smaller since then, now down to an amazingly low 0.6%.

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html

That makes it one of the most efficient programs in history. If we are as efficient with the carbon dividend, the future can be pretty bright.

[talltexan]

“Minus administrative fees”.

I don’t trust our government to not fuck it up. How long before grift and general fuckery means the administrative fees are more than the rebate?  You think the government is going to handle that much money going through their grimey little fingers without taking an ever-bigger piece of the pie, Social Security style?  Nah.

This is pretty much my opinion also.
How about we require them to to remove two existing regs or taxes for every new one they initiate?

This never seems to go as planned when they try it.