Prominent right-of-center groups and individuals have floated the idea recently of backing a carbon tax that uses its revenue to offset other taxes or pay down the national debt. But a new industry report casts doubt on the viability of that policy, and the contradictory proposals of carbon tax proponents underscore those concerns.
Many of those proponents have touted right-of-center support for a carbon tax proposal that would use revenue raised for fiscally conservative ends: shifting the tax burden from income (e.g. the payroll tax or the income tax) to consumption, and a reduction in the federal budget deficit.
A report released Tuesday by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) says that such hopes are misplaced. As IER points out,
Even if the carbon tax revenues are initially devoted 100 percent to reducing the burden of other taxes, it would be quite naïve to trust the government to honor this deal forever. It is far more likely that during the next fiscal crisis, the government would raise payroll, income, and/or other tax rates, while keeping the new carbon tax in place.
Indeed, Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist said Tuesday that a full repeal of the income tax would be required before he would consider supporting a carbon tax. Even then, he added, “it would be a foolish and economically destructive thing to do.”
Read more at The Foundry. By Lachlan Markay.
Photo credit: peace chicken (Creative Commons)
Please share this post with your friends and comment below. If you haven’t already, take a moment to sign up for our free newsletter above and friend us on Twitter and Facebook to get real time updates.
Follow @WestJournalism
Loading ...
The carbon tax will NOT be used to supplement other taxes or pay down the deficit. Whether there is a crisis in progress or not Congress, whether Democrat or Republican controlled, will spend the money devived from the carbon tax. Spending money is the only thing they know how to do with money.
People falling for the global warming, climate change scheme are MORONS, and have no recollection of Science in School, in School they should have leaned the SUN, regulates EARTHS Temperatures, yet they have fallen prey to the AL Gores of the world who insist a TRACE Gas, that Occupies 390 Parts per MILLION is a problem, up from 290 Parts Per Million in 1700, Man cannot possibly use enough energy to affect the earths Temperatures, and they dont see the real BIG picture of what this means it means UN elected Bureaucrats will be deciding HOW much you should pay THEM for energy and more…..do NOT fall for this…
The crisis in Congress is THEIR spending problem.
Neither party with touch their “sacred cows” DemoRats won’[t touch their welfare voting base, and RINOs won’t touch their Military Industrial Complex. These two programs eat up most of our national budget, and both are terribly abused to the point of being absurd.
BTW, the whole solar system is heating, not just earth, you Global Warming goombahs. Next thing you know the green religion will want money to regulate carbon monoxide on the Sun. No really…that’s the way those morons think.
It just dawned on me that the DemoRats don’t want a good economy…it would shrink their welfare voting base.