Earth Equity News

An Emissions Plan that Conservatives Could Warm To. Commentary by Bob Inglis and Arthur B. Laffer. "Conservatives don't support tax increases that are veiled as 'cap and trade' schemes for pollution permits. But offer us a tax swap, and we could become the new administration's best allies on climate change. A climate-change bill withered in Congress this summer because families don't need an enormous, and hidden, tax increase. If the bill's authors had instead proposed a simple carbon tax coupled with an equal, offsetting reduction in income taxes or payroll taxes, a dynamic new energy security policy could have taken root... The market-driven innovation that brought us the Internet and the personal computer could quickly bring us new, cleaner fuels. A carbon tax that was fully offset (with payroll or income taxes cut by a dollar amount equal to the revenues generated by the new tax) would be as bold as the threat that we face. Conservatives do not have to agree that humans are causing climate change to recognize a sensible energy solution. All we need to assume is that burning less fossil fuels would be a good thing... As president, Barack Obama, by working with conservatives as well as the members of his own party, can at once clean the air, create jobs and improve the national security of the United States -- a triple play for the next American century. Bob Inglis is a Republican representative from South Carolina. Arthur B. Laffer was a member of President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1981 to 1989."