Earth Equity News

A Post-Partisan Solution. Commentary by James Pethokoukis, USNews, March 20, 2009. "Just how flummoxed is the cap-and-trade crowd right about now? Congressional Democrats from Big Carbon states, as well as conservative Republicans, have immediately identified and attacked the new White House cap-and-trade plan as a de facto carbon tax. In a recent hearing, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, called Obama's proposal 'unlikely to happen,' while Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, blasted it as a 'radical' approach that would 'destroy the ability of Congress to come together'... If it want to still push a green plan, better the White House eventually pivot and instead push a carbon tax that, for instance, returns 100 percent of revenue back to consumers as a dividend. That's the plan favored by climate activist and NASA scientist James Hansen. Or it could adopt the 'tax what you burn, not what you earn' approach of Al Gore, who advocates replacing America's Social Security payroll tax with a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Either way, bipartisan support is there for the taking. Influential conservative economists such as Gary Becker, Kevin Hassett and Gregory Mankiw favor a carbon tax, as does columnist Charles Krauthammer. (So too, by the way, Obama economic adviser Paul Volcker, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, and the Democrat-controlled Congressional Budget Office.) A carbon tax would be a post-partisan solution for a president who campaigned as a post-partisan problem solver."