Some Republicans embrace market manipulation through increasing taxes on fossil fuels

Fuel Fix:
Some big name Republicans have joined on to a coalition lobbying to combat climate change through a carbon tax.

A group that includes former Secretary of State James Baker III, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Walmart Chairman Rob Walton are pressing President Donald Trump to back a proposal that would tax carbon emissions and then return that money to U.S. taxpayers through a dividend payment.

Baker met with Trump’s National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn at the White House Wednesday morning and said afterwards while they didn’t get an immediate response, “I think they’re going to look at it.”

“If you’re a Republican there’s a lot to like,” Baker said before boarding a plane at Dulles International Airport to fly back to Houston. “The risks [of climate change] are so great, if the greenies are right. You need an insurance policy, and this a damn fine, free market, conservative, less regulation proposal. It’s very simple at it will work.”

As concerns rise over the impact greenhouse gas emissions are having on the earth’s atmosphere, some economists have pressed the federal government to institute a carbon tax as the most direct and least complicated means of addressing climate change. Supporters of the proposal include former Vice President Al Gore, environmental groups and even some large oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell.

But Republican and Democratic leaders alike have resisted, concerned that rising prices at the gasoline pump and heating bills would lead to a backlash from voters.
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I oppose this tax.  There is a reason that alternative energy has not taken more market share.  It is less efficient than fossil fuels.  Increasing the tax on the most efficient energy gives them even less incentive to increase the efficiency of alternatives.   Government market manipulation is just as insidious as corporate market manipulation.

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