Where can revenue scorers get the $1 trillion over 10 years the border tax was supposed to raise? Well, ahem, a carbon tax is also a consumption tax. To make it acceptable to free marketers, it would have to come with a full stop to all climate-related mandates and subsidies including fuel-mileage rules. It would also have to be clear that all carbon-tax proceeds are being used to cut payroll or income taxes.
Boston Globe: GOP elders push for climate action
New York Times: A Rare Republican Call to Climate Action
The most important thing about a carbon tax plan proposed last week may be the people behind it: prominent Republicans like James Baker III, George Shultz and Henry Paulson Jr. Their endorsement of the idea, variations of which have been suggested before, may be a breakthrough for a party that has closed its eyes to the perils of man-made climate change and done everything in its power to thwart efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Washington Post: In Support of a Carbon Tax
The Feb. 9 article “GOP statesmen propose replacing Obama climate policies with carbon tax” failed to remind readers of a compelling reason — highly relevant to the current debate over tax reform — that a carbon tax is the most workable approach to addressing carbon emissions. Any regime we adopt must have a means to impose our “carbon price” on imports. If not, we can expect major producers of climate gases (e.g., steel furnaces) to be replaced by plants in low-carbon-cost countries (long known as “leakage”).
Bloomberg News: This Tax Could Save the Planet From Climate Change
Washington Post: An Elegant Climate Policy
A GROUP of prominent Republicans brought a refreshing message to Washington on Wednesday: Climate change is a threat that deserves serious attention, and the GOP should embrace smart ways of dealing with it. What sorts of ways? The group — which calls itself the Climate Leadership Council and includes two former secretaries of state, James A. Baker III and George P. Shultz; two former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin S. Feldstein and N. Gregory Mankiw; and former treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. — has a carbon emissions-reduction plan ready to go. And it is excellent.