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  • Unknown Member

    Deleted User
    June 25, 2008 at 7:54 pm

    [i]I would consider them if I thought they would work.  It isn’t the ‘tax’ part that bothers me.

    Giving tax credits to the poor is fine, but more often than not what happens is the gov’t doesn’t take into account all of the true costs involved.  In this tax scenario, food, clothing, housing will all increase in cost.  [/i]

    Many items would indeed go up in price.  But income taxes would go down, offset by the money collected from a pollution tax.  The net effect on average would be the same after tax income.  The more polluting items would go up more.  And the less polluting items would comparitively go down in price.  As they should.  A price should reflect the true cost of producing something.  There is no free lunch.  It is irresponsible to give away free pollution absorbing capacity.  The world’s ability to absorb CO2 for example is limited.  Arguably, it has already been used up.  If highly polluting items cost more, then less of them will be made, and more ecological items will replace them.  That is what you want, isn’t it?
    [i]
    For example, i would assume that the poor live in older, less efficient housing; that would increase in cost as well.  The rich live, in general, in newer housing.  (I know some of these are gross exaggerations, but stick with me here).  A similar argument could be made with cars.  Giving a family 4 grand isn’t going to[/i][i] allow them to buy a new house, or buy a new car.  They will likely have to stick with the same old clunker, and still pay the tax.  Does this really help the environment?  The same for the house; no matter how much the gov’t will reimburse, are they going to buy people new houses?  New furnaces and water heaters?  4 grand is nothing.[/i]

    The rich tend to live in large expensive new energy efficient houses that they keep overcooled and overheated because they can afford it.  The poor tend to live in smaller energy inefficient houses or apartments that they undercool and underheat in order to save money.  The net effect is the rich actually spend more per capita per month on utilities than the poor (although the rich get a lot more for their money).

    As far as the cost of housing is concerned, with pollution taxes the rich would pay much more than the poor.  The rich will still want their new McMansions, but said McMansions, which require vast amounts of energy to construct, will go up tremendously in price.  Powering the hot tub, the lights on the tennis court and so on will also go up considerably.  Meanwhile, the poor will seal up their small houses and apartments, consume rather little energy, and not pay much more. 

    It is throwing away existing infrastructure and building new buildings from the ground up that uses huge amounts of energy.  More generally, spending money is highly correlated with spending energy (some items more than others).  Since the rich buy more, they will pay more.

    You are right, the poor will stick with older less efficient capital equipment.  However, they will use it less.  They might finally sell their car and use the bus.  Or keep the car but combine trips.  Just because you have an old junker car does not mean you will waste a lot of gas.  If you drive it 5 miles a week just to go grocery shopping, you will create far less carbon emisssions than if you buy a new car, even if the new car gets 200 miles per gallon.

    There is a difference between energy efficiency and energy usage.  It is reduction in usage that we are after, not energy efficiency per se.  You seem to equate reduction in carbon emissions with energy efficient capital.  But that is a rich man’s solution.  That is how you personally like to solve the energy crisis.  You like to have all your high tech super energy efficient gadgets.  But you ignore the huge energy cost of setting up all that equipment.  In the long run you will save energy, but that barely compensates for the initial energy cost.  Furthermore, as you know, the technique of  investment in energy-efficient capital is not a technique suited to everyone.  Most people are not smart enough and/or not wealthy enough to do that.  For other people, it works just as well to use existing capital more wisely.  It takes a lot of energy and a lot of carbon emissions to build new houses and new cars.  Making billions of new houses and cars will not save the world.  It is much more ecological and economical to insulate existing housing and use exisiting vehicles more efficiently.

    [i] As for your argument about ultraefficient cars, that actually works against you.  BAsically, then, whether you choose a highly polluting car or an ultraefficient one, you are polluting heavily; in which case, the tax will hit you, no matter what you do.  [/i]

    If you buy a new car, you immediately cause a huge amount of pollution because it takes a lot of pollution to make a new car.  That is true.  But isn’t it fair that those who pollute by buying a new car pay for the pollution required to make that car?  After your initial purchase of a new car, you will continue to pollute, although rather little per mile driven.  If you buy or keep an old car, however, the initial pollution you create is small, although the amount of pollution per mile will be higher.  However, if you don’t drive much, you won’t create much pollution.  And thus you will not pay much in pollution tax.

    So, to minimize pollution (and cost), one should buy a new highly efficient car if one plans on driving a lot, but one should get a cheaper used car if one does not plan on driving that much.  As far as overall pollution, unless one is driving very large distances, it is almost always more economical and ecological to buy a used car, even if it gets poorer gas mileage.

    It is not true that the tax will hit you no matter what you do.  If you buy a used car with decent mileage and don’t drive it very much, then you will not be hit very hard.  If you buy the latest brand new SUV and use it for joyriding, you will pay dearly.  If it is worth it for you to pay all those taxes for cleaning up the pollution for your joyriding, then go for it.  Enjoy.  You are paying for the pollution, so no one should fault you.  You decided that it was worth it for you.

    [i] Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  And I have no idea how you would make sure that cars are maintained; yearly inspections have not been shown to be effective in this manner, that is why many states have given up on them.  Ironcially, the two best ways to maintain high mileage are air pressure and air filters, both very economical/free.  But again, how does assure that this will happen?[/i]

    There is no need for the government to require and administrate and pay for yearly inspections or any other means of enforcing energy efficiency unless things are as they are now, where the pollution cost of polluters is paid for by other people.  If pollution taxes add the real cost of pollution to the price of fuel, then gas will be so expensive that people will be very motivated to use every trick in the book to cut their consumption.  If not, then the people who do not take care of their car will pay a penalty that is very close to the cost to the environment.  The fine ithen will be commensurate with the crime.
     [i]
    On top of all that, pollution taxes will basically allow the rich to pollute as much as they want.  There is no curtailing of their spending, is there?  So what if their luxury car costs an extra couple grand a year?  Most don’t care.  Same with planes, etc.  Not to mention, I have no idea how you would regulate foreigners…

    [/i]Yes, as always, the rich will be allowed to consume and pollute as much as they want.  The difference is, with pollution taxes, they will pay the true cost of this pollution.  This cost would otherwise be born, for example, by hurricane and flooding victims half way around the world.  Or the cost would be paid by those who die of starvation from drought.  With pollution taxes, those who pollute pay the price.  And the taxes thus collected can be used to save the planet.

    Foreigners purchasing US goods would pay pollution taxes, which are essentially in the form of explicit or implicit national sales taxes. The taxes are on only a few fossil fuels and other raw products, but these costs are passed on in the form of higher prices on items made from these raw materials.  Hopefully other countries would also impose pollution taxes, preferably as part of an international treaty (actually, many countries in the world already have national sales taxes).  This would prevent, for example, industrial manufacturing and other production from migrating to countries with lax pollution laws.  Ideally a worldwide pollution tax would be negotiated that would provide no safe haven for polluters.  Ideally, no one can dump their pollution onto the planet without paying for its cleanup.

    [i] Again, it isn’t specifically the tax part of this I am against.  This is going to cost a lot of money, no matter how you do it.  I just am not convinced that this is going to work.[/i]

    It is not going to cost money.  It is merely going to redistribute money from polluters to non-polluters.  All the tax money that is collected does not vanish.  A pollution tax will be passed on up the production chain.  However, the total cost in the form of increased prices will be very close to the amount of tax collected.  So there is no net cost.  Only a redistribution of money from polluting activities to the government.  The US government may continue to allow the environment to be destroyed, using the money to reduce income taxes for example.  The extent to which the government pays for pollution mitigation is another issue.  Some or all of the pollution taxes may be earmarked for pollution mitigation.

    To summarize, the way a pollution tax would work is through a national sales tax on relevant raw materials.  It would be phased in to avoid shocks to the economy.  Eventually, the price of all goods and services would include the actual environmental cost.  Consumers would shift their consumption patterns to favor more ecological products.  Billions would be raised from such a tax, reducing the need for income taxes.  The overall tax the average individual would pay would not change much.  Sales tax increase would be offset by income tax decrease.