An editorial today by the Washington Post highlighted presidential hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) proposal for reducing carbon emissions. If you guessed it probably involves some kind of tax, you’d be right.
I refuse to believe another tax is the best solution for reducing carbon emissions. Dodd’s plan would redirect the anticipated $50 billion in new federal tax revenues each year to research on renewable energy technologies. When revenues are talked about, they should come from growth and from markets, not from new taxes.
We should rely on the private sector to develop these new energy innovations, and a market-based cap and trade system can get us there. Sure, Europe’s experiment with a carbon market hasn’t had time to be fully tested, and early reviews are mixed, but is anyone really surprised? Who’s better at creating markets than America? For proof, just look at the successful cap and trade market for sulfur dioxide emissions here in the U.S. that is already yielding results and allowing businesses to make money in the process.
Given a choice between the marketplace or more government taxes and subsidies, I’ll put my money on the marketplace every time – and I’ll bet American entrepreneurs will, too.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Cap and Trade, Politics/Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
