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TODAY Wednesday 11 June 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Wednesday 11 June 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: More Taxes
One way of looking at our environmental problems is to say that there is too great a distance between prices and costs. Unlike current arrangements, an ecologically sustainable society would require prices on goods and services that reflect the costs those goods and services exact on natural systems and the generations of human beings that rely on them. As it is, our prices for gasoline, say, capture a good deal less than half of the costs of its combustion. Sometimes prices and costs can be aligned more closely by the removal of perverse subsidies for environmental degradation. But sometimes the market just doesn't have the capability of stretching far enough into time and space to encompass a broad, and true, definition of ecological value; prices have to be adjusted. And one of the best tools we have for adjusting prices is the tax code.
No one disputes that fiscal policies can induce or inhibit behaviors that affect the environment, and no list of measures to promote sustainable development omits taxes. Analysts argue about the degree to which a particular fiscal instrument causes predictable changes in behavior, but there is broad agreement that, environmentally speaking, whether the subject is toxins or land use or climate change, taxes and subsidies matter. And there is no argument at all that tax policy deeply affects the quantity and quality of jobs, investments, and household purchasing power.
But though proposals to overhaul the tax code are in the news again, few people are discussing their environmental implications. Since the death of the late, lamented BTU Tax proposal of 1993, environmentalists have been chary of green tax initiatives and the Clinton Administration has been inoculated against ever talking about them again. Slamming federal subsidies for ecologically-destructive behavior is a good thing to do, but relatively easy. It's much harder to propose taxes, even if all you want is a revenue-neutral "tax shift" that discourages waste and pollution while it encourages conservation, employment and investment. There are some brave enviros willing to tackle the issue -- Redefining Progress, Americans for a Sustainable Economy, the Environmental Tax Project -- but it's still a small movement, eyeing its chance to grab attention and make some quick impacts.
There appears to be an opportunity at hand. Rep. Bill Archer, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has just reported out the 1997 Republican version of federal tax reform. It's a mess, a grab bag of complicated incentives and exemptions whose overall effect will be the transfer of wealth to people who already have it. You can argue with the class analysis, but there's no getting around the fact that the Ways and Means proposal further complicates an already impenetrable Internal Revenue Code. As this morning's Wall Street Journal sums it up, "Tax Simplification, a hot issue only a year ago, fades rapidly from view." The Democratic alternative is being prepared by Rep. Richard Gephardt, whose affection for over-detailed legislation is matched only by his President's inability to be straightforward on anything as promisingly ambiguous as tax reform. Naturally, neither the Republican proposal nor the Democratic draft has anything meaningful to say about the environment.
The question for the day, then, is whether that small tribe of tax enviros can exploit the opportunity presented by the sheer complicated horrificness of today's tax-policy-as-usual. Any chance that the mild public interest evidenced last year about Steve Forbes' simplification proposals might be re-awakened and re-channelled? Can enviros persuasively cast themselves as Voices of the People, rising above the special interests of greed and loopholes, offering a plan that's simple, fair, and workable? Can we dare to hope that the republic is ready to consider a carbon tax as the central revenue-raising instrument of the national government?
Well, no, almost certainly not. But as long as the shortened attention span of our media is turned to questions of taxes, let's float some ideas and get some coverage and establish an identity completely independent of the two major parties, wallowed as they are in venal pandering. This is an opportunity to appear, and to be, ethical and practical and non-partisan, all at the same time.
And if anyone wants a specific proposal to float, my vote goes to Denis Hayes' brilliant idea of linking a federal carbon tax with Social Security and Medicare. For every dollar taken in by the carbon tax, a dollar goes to entitlement programs for the elderly. Everybody knows that seniors vote, write letters, and throw their political weight around with great effect. And just imagine how much more weight they'll throw when we boomers reach retirement age. I like the idea of taxing the hell out of young Ford Explorer drivers so that a variety of therapeutic specialists can come to my retirement cabin and soothe any bothersome discomforts that might accompany my otherwise graceful decline.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Information on the best Website resources on environmental taxes is just a click away. Give a look into our High Fives feature on Taxes, written by Andrew Hoerner, one of the very best authorities you'll find anywhere.
6/10: Clean Air, Hot Air
6/09: Swimming
6/06: Enviros and Transpo
6/05: Fabulous Ethanol
6/04: Swine and Federalism
6/03: A New Measure
6/02: My Front Yard
5/30: Funders
5/29: Quantification
5/28: Over the Top
5/27: Solar Hippies
5/23: Spiffy Cars, Clunker Bikes
5/22: Petroleum Heresy
5/21: We Irish
5/20: Shallow Backpackers
5/19: Songbirds
5/16: Fat, Fat, Fat
5/15: Our Forthright Administration
5/14: Coral Reefs of the Sahara
5/13: (Life Before) Death and Taxes
5/12: Kids
5/09: Free Trade and Hormones
5/08: Sherry Boehlert, Republican
5/07: Fort Davis, West Texas
5/06: Europe (yawn)
5/05: Divorce, Mothers, Equality
5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway