Spending Implies Taxation
The vacuity of right-wing thinking on climate change is really astounding. They know what the right conclusion is—no curbs whatsoever should be placed on the production of climate pollution—but they have a kaleidoscopic array of reasons why this is the right answer. This can lead to some serious nonsense, like this from Max Borders at The Next Right, who encourages the GOP to embrace some risky new ideas like this one:
Global Warming: “More Technology, No More Taxes” – We’re willing to fund sequestration technology. We’re willing to fund geo-engineering technology. We’re willing to use X-prize-type contests to do it. But we’re not willing to tax the American people as they rebound from a severe recession—for all for a hypothetical “crisis” that has never quite materialized.
There are lots of approaches to the climate crisis that deserve funding, from geo-engineering to concentrated solar thermal to carbon sequestration. But guess what it takes to finance new technology? Well, it takes funds. And funds come from taxes. So how about we get those funds by charging polluters for their emissions? Doesn’t that make more sense that funding clean energy priorities through generic taxes on labor or consumption?
25 Responses to “Spending Implies Taxation”
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May 14th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Ah, but you see you can always increase revenues by cutting taxes–problem solved.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
On another intersting note, the more people actually know about global warming the less “alarmed” they seem to be. I guess thats a result of some super secret counter information conservative underground think tank.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I disagree. We can fund all of these projects just from the money we get for passing GO.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Even more interestingly, you’ve just pulled that out of your ass.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
On another interesting note, Nathan remains a fucking fool. I guess that’s a result of him being a fucking fool.
It’s funny, though, that for all the talk of “hypotheticals” the supposedly non-luddite right argument is basically “get us some magic beans”. In fact, it’s nothing more than saying “our policy is– look over here!”
May 14th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Carbon sequestration is basically the least cost-effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. It’s simultaneously hilarious and sad that the party who spent 8 years extolling the virtues of cost-benefit analysis in government has latched onto this. Nuclear power is much more cost effective, but still not option #1 for cheap reductions in emissions.
Why the hell would someone want spend any money at all on carbon sequestration to forestall a “hypothetical ‘crisis’” ?
May 14th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Right wing thinking on climate change is indeed vacuous, but I still think this post gets the policy a bit muddled. Carbon pricing is more important than funding basic research or technology prizes, regardless of what is done with the revenue. The way Matt has framed the issue here, you might think an acceptable compromise would be to, say, skip the carbon pricing, insitute deep cuts in military spending instead, and apply the savings to energy research. But this would be an entirely inadequate response to climate change. The pricing is really the thing.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I thought that was the whole point — to the extent there was one — behind the teabagging, i.e., that Obama’s spending increases necessarily implied higher taxes. Suddenly that’s no longer operative?
May 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Matt, geo engineering is almost certainly a fantasy and a stall by the right. Carbon sequestration may someday work, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Research all you want, it’s not really that promising. The right also sees it as a stall.
Nuclear is NOT cost effective overall….it is too expensive to build and run….and there will be issues with uranium supply regardless. Nuclear will help with a small percentage of our power generation.
Conservation/efficiency is BY FAR the best thing we can do right now and going forward – no miracles are gonna save us — and Waxman Markey has a decent start at an approach.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
@Crab Nebula – Nuclear can be cost effective… much less so than efficiency improvements, but it’s not impossible. You’re right that it can’t come close to the scale we need, though.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Well, don’t forget that in this particular line of thinking, government funded research is inefficient, pointing to NASA as the proof (studiously ignoring the tremendous progress NIH has provided in the past 10 years) then cite the X-prize as proof that large cash expenditures for a technological race is the most efficient solution.
Which is of course how it works, seeing how suborbital trips are routine nowadays.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Carbon sequestration is about as economical as switching to solar right now. Both are worth looking into, but not mass producing.
In the long run, we might find ourselves in a situation where we need to reduce CO2 levels faster than even zero emissions would allow. In such a circumstance, sequestration would be the only answer. It’s unlikely, but certainly possible.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
@Njorl
A McKinsey study (PDF) found that offsetting carbon by sequestration is about twice as expensive as solar photovoltaics.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
“Well, it takes funds. And funds come from taxes. ”
Note that Yglesias cannot even conceive that regular investment make loans. He must be so ensconced in his socialist work that he forgets about private banks.
But, no! Didn’t Yglesias mention that he got a house loan? Oh yes, he applied indirectly to the government loan officer, Freddie Mac.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I bet the lobbiest for Lockheed Martin could tell you.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Matt Young,
Since the context of the quote was government policy it is pretty reasonable to assume that when Max Borders says “we’re willing to fund” he clearly means the government.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Shorter Max Borders — I a conservative so I think that central planning works and the market doesn’t.
As our host notes regularly, people who believe in the market system and the basic efficiency of capitalism support a carbon tax. A market fundamentalist who recognises that global warming is a problem would advocate nudging prices so that it is profitable to do it and then let the profit motive work its magic. I note that our host respects the market and is not a fundamentalist and is willing to be flixible and complement the tax with public programs.
Border, on the other hand, is clearly a socialist. He thinks that if something should be done, then the government should do it directly. He doesn’t seem to have any sense that prices affect the behavior of private agents. I’d say he doesn’t know the neoclassical economics that Trotsky taught Lenin (Trotsky once drew a supply curve crossing a demand curve on a black board before the amazed eyes of Lenin’s politibureau).
Pathetic truly pathetic.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Inglis of South Carolina are sponsoring an actual carbon tax, offset by payroll tax credits. So we have two serious Republicans, another 150 or so to go. In this case carbon taxiation does not imply spending.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Trees. Let me ask yet again, how many new trees would take care of our carbon problem? Anyone?
As for nuclear, if France can do it, so can we.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Ever since the Vince Foster affair, I’ve noticed that Republicans act as if all positions that disagree with a Democratic position are cumulative. Various theories about Foster’s death that one group of crackpots held contradicted other theories that other crackpots held, but the only thing that mattered was that there was a large number of words involved. So, spending money on a “hypothetical” crisis makes sense to Republicans since it’s simply one thing more to fill the air with.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
You forgot the correct answer: Do nothing, let the social engineers find another way to convince us that we need to radically downsize our lifestyles.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I think the criticism here of carbon sequestration misses the point: in talking about funding different approaches, it seems to me that Matt was talking about funding research into different approaches. Carbon sequestration may not be worth putting into any sort of mass production now, but it might still be worth spending money on researching, in case a more efficient way of sequestering carbon can be found. Matt’s point was that all sorts of different approaches ought to be researched so we can see which ones offer the best hope and which ones could complement each other.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I think that Matt misses the point that Max Boot was making. The current proposals for carbon taxes have a large Pigovian element to them; that is, the tx level is nto determined by how much revenue needs to be raised but by how much the tax level needs to be to alter behavior to a desried extent.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the amount of money Obama is planning on raising with cap and trade is far in excess of what he is planning on spending on developing new technologies.
So Boot’s point makes more sense, if you assume that the taxes he is worried about are far in excess of what is planned to be spent for energy research.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Hey at least 3/5 of those ideas aren’t totally ridiculous. Yes I count that funding as part of the five, yes it’s partially ridiculous but unless we do develop carbon capture tech Matt Yglesias will soon be learning what it’s like to live like his ancestors…
…by that I mean the hot dry climate of either the middle-east or the Maghreb depending the Spanish or Jewish sides.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Crab Nebula Says:
May 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Matt, geo engineering is almost certainly a fantasy and a stall by the right. Carbon sequestration may someday work, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Research all you want, it’s not really that promising. The right also sees it as a stall.
Nuclear is NOT cost effective overall….it is too expensive to build and run….and there will be issues with uranium supply regardless. Nuclear will help with a small percentage of our power generation.
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Total baloney!! Nuclear currently provides 20% of electric generation in the US and we haven’t built a new plant in 25 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States
And I agree with #19, if France can do it, we can do it