You are here

Prof. Aseem Prakash on The Hill web site, "The key to a successful carbon tax is how you spend the money"

Submitted by Stephen Dunne on February 23, 2018 - 4:12pm
United States government nor the individual states have successfully enacted a carbon tax law while 25 countries in the world enacted it. Washington proposed a carbon tax I-732 during 2016 elections but it was defeated securing only 41% vote. This caused many states to consider enacting a carbon tax law. 
 
The reason why it was difficult to pass this law was that there were disagreements on how to spend the money. The first way is that money could be returned to businesses and households through tax cuts, which the liberal groups opposed. The second way is to spend money on climate-related policies and the third way is to fund other priorities such as K-12 education.  
 
Furthermore, the location where the tax money is being spent is important. If the tax money is mainly spent on conservative Eastern Washington on climate adaption, liberal Western Washington may not agree with it. The same thing can also happen if it mainly benefits the other side. 

Fro the full article please click here.

Share