Want less Offshoring Millionaires? -- Tax it.
Want less of a Wall Street Derivative Casino? -- Tax it.
Want less high capacity magazines mowing down innocent bystanders? -- Tax the living crap out of it.
Want less hostage-taking showdowns in Congress? -- Promise them MORE Taxes.
Want less Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere? -- Tax it!
Otherwise ... there is absolutely NO Economic Incentive to change, if people don't actually have to pay for the damages that result from their me-first activities.
And they will just continue to get by with it, scot-free.
Taxing Carbon To Pay For Transportation Infrastructure
by Ashley Ahearn, NW Public Radio -- Jan 4, 2013
[...]
“Money’s not going to fall from the sky, so we need to get it from somewhere. So why not deal with the climate problem at the same time that we deal with the transportation problem," Bauman says.
British Columbia put a tax on carbon back in 2008. Businesses now pay $30 per ton of CO2 that they emit. And some of those costs are passed down to citizens, who pay about 30 cents more per gallon at the pump.
The tax brings in a billion dollars a year for BC. As a result, the province has been able to lower personal and corporate income tax rates and provide rebates to low income households.
Bauman says if a similar tax were applied in Washington the state could collect $2.3 billion a year.
But instead of giving all the money back to citizens, Bauman and others propose that some of the carbon tax money go towards transportation infrastructure.
It’s an idea that’s gaining traction. State Senator Kevin Ranker plans to introduce carbon tax legislation in the coming days.
[...]
We NEED to put a Price on Carbon,
to cover all of its Hidden Costs;
We NEED to put a Price on Carbon, to spur innovation which will eventually lessen those True Hidden Costs -- a dime of which, is never paid by the long-time loot-taking profiteers of carbon fuel extraction.
Until that happens, not much will change.
Except for the rearranging of chairs on the USS Exxon. Hello Keystone XL! Let me divert traffic for you. How about a another Long Island Cooler?
AND while were at it, we also NEED to turn Oil Subsidies into Renewable Energy Subsidies, which SHOULD HAVE started around about the time BP turned the clean water jewel of the Gulf of Mexico, into a festering seething pit of tar!
Want less OIL & GAS Imprints on our once pristine World? -- Tax the living daylights out of it! ... like there's no tomorrow.
Because one day soon -- there won't be.
-- end rant --