The recent influx of carbon tax bills in Congress is a response to the left’s new attempt to convince Americans that global warming is the real deal. Unfortunately what these bills really reveal is the extent to which the ruling elite from both sides of the isle are willing to go to separate you from your money.
Former Republican Congressman from Florida, Carlos Curbelo, joined Diane Feinstein (D-CA) to introduce the Climate Action Rebate Act of 2019, before losing his reelection bid. This bill would start greenhouse gas fees at $15 per metric ton of carbon and gradually increase the fee. Estimated to bring in a minimum of $12 billion a year in revenue, Coons and Feinstein claim that part of the money would be rebated to low income families and the rest invested in clean energy. Coons had previously submitted another Carbon Tax bill with former Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona). Congressman Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) also introduced a companion bill.
Fake Republican Congressman Mitt Romney joined with Dan Lipinski (D-Il) as cosponsor, to introduce the Stemming Warming and Augmenting Pay Act, that would impose a $30 tax per metric ton of carbon. Revenues would be largely paid out to individuals through cuts to payroll taxes according to Romney while speaking at the Conservative Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City. Of course, all those unemployed coal miners and the ultra-poor would be left to struggle on their own.
Lipinski also introduced his own bill with Romney as cosponsor titled the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act of 2019 which would also use the Carbon Tax revenue to cut payroll taxes, with a small portion doled out to Social Security beneficiaries. His bill would start taxing carbon at $40 per ton. Again, cutting payroll taxes doesn’t help the unemployed.
While each proposed Carbon Tax bill differs, they all tax activities that emit carbon dioxide on the premise those emissions are responsible for the (fake) global warming scam and, as usual, they plan on combating something that doesn’t exist with a policy that will lead to economic failure.
Families would pay more at the meter and the pump. Approximately 80% of America’s energy needs are met by natural gas, oil, and coal, which means the cost would be economy-wide. Everything will go up in portion to the tax charged – food, housing, clothing, transportation, health care, etc.
Analysts at The Heritage Foundation used the U.S. Energy Administration Information’s energy model to estimate the effects of a carbon tax to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as aggressively as possible between now and 2040. According to the model’s results, a carbon tax would mean the loss initially of more than 1.4 million jobs; a total income loss of more than $40,000 for a family of four; an aggregate gross domestic production loss of more than $3.9 trillion; and increases in household electricity expenditures of 12% to 124%. The burden of carbon taxes would be the heaviest on low-income families who spend a higher portion of their budget on energy costs.
But even if the government came up with a rebate to compensate low-income families for their higher energy bills, it won’t undo the damage they’ll incur from paying more for groceries, clothes, health care, and everything else they buy because of the increased cost of energy for all those providers.
Then there’s the bureaucratic nightmare of implementing a new tax. Acknowledging that a carbon tax would harm American businesses and U.S. competitiveness, carbon tax proponents suggest enacting a border adjustment tax for imported goods from countries where no carbon pricing exists. Others propose to eliminate environmental regulations in exchange for a carbon tax.
Administering border taxes on goods imported from countries without carbon taxes “would be enormously complex, requiring an estimate of the tax-equivalent value of the given policies under examination,” according to the American Enterprise Institute. And the administrative state would be empowered to make decisions micromanaging the economy via tax policy.
Supporters argue a carbon tax is worth it despite the costs to the American public, even though it would do nothing to benefit the global temperatures. In other words, they’ll be destroying the U.S. economy for nothing other than to line their own pockets.
A research paper, The Global Tree Restoration Potential , shows that planting a trillion trees is by far the cheapest way to tackle the faux climate crisis. As the trees grow, they absorb and store carbon emissions. Estimates suggest that a worldwide planting program would remove 2/3’s of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities.
The world’s elite don’t really care that the U.S. economy would be destroyed. It isn’t about the climate anyway – it’s about money, power and control.
Source: Why the Carbon Tax Would Backfire on America by Laura Williamson / Nicolas Loris, Heritage; Tree planting ‘has mind-blowing potential’ to tackle climate crisis, The Guardian
