 |
TODAY Thursday 10 July 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
newsroom
|
TODAY Thursday 10 July 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Oil and Taxes
Today or tomorrow, Senate and House negotiators will start fashioning a compromise tax law. The bills passed by each house --"massive and highly complex," in the words of The Wall Street Journal -- are to be somehow amalgamated over the next three weeks, in time for the recess that begins in early August.
As a middle-income father of teenagers, I believe that I have something of a personal stake in these negotiations, but I really can't tell you for sure. Do I get $500 for the 16 year old? What's the write-off for the 19 year old's tuition? Other proposals which are drawing intense political pressure from interested parties -- lowering capital gains taxes, lowering inheritance taxes, lowering taxes of pensioners receiving more than $160,000 a year in investment income -- fall into the I-should-be-so-lucky-to-have-such-problems category. Judging from the tenor of press reports, it seems that the overall trend of whatever is produced in the House-Senate conference committee will be to ease the tax burden of that fraction of the population that pays an accountant to prepare the returns.
Which is a very different result from that predicted by the conventional wisdom of 1996. Candidate Steve Forbes and new Ways & Means Chair Bill Archer had attracted a lot of attention with their tax-simplification schemes, and though those schemes were roundly criticized -- mostly for their tendency to go easy on the rich -- few analysts disagreed with the central proposition that the federal tax code was a complicated mess of special-interest pleadings. The 1997 bills that will be wrangled over in the conference committee, however, are even more complicated and messier than the current version. Perhaps the lesson to be drawn is that nowadays a patient lobbyist can just wait for the 15-minute storm of public opinion to blow over before he goes back to business as usual. Is there a civic movement in this country with any legs?
Well, the environmental movement might qualify, but we certainly haven't wielded much influence on these tax bills. The "Green Scissors" effort to find common ground between enviros and fiscal conservatives has been a success in spotlighting some key anti-environment federal subsidies, but we haven't had anything like the same influence on the revenue-generating side of the equation. There is a dedicated group of enviro tax specialists, but none of the major national environmental organizations is making tax policy a priority. Combined, environmentalists spend less than a million dollars a year -- the luncheon budget of the American Truckers Association -- on tax research and education.
This is a pity. The tax code constitutes the most important environmental statute on the books. Nothing influences economic behavior so much as price. And when the prices of goods and behaviors don't come close to the costs they exact through time and space -- one way of looking at ecological degradation -- the tax code represents a useful social tool for reducing the distance. Tax work is rarely popular with environmental group members, it's a non-starter as a direct-mail message, and the thrashing enviros took during the BTU Tax debate of 1993 has had lingering effects. But still and all, it's a failure of our movement that environmental considerations are simply not a factor in the inside-track discussions over tax cuts and tax reform.
And the distance between prices and costs promises to grow larger, at least in the short-to-medium run. The International Energy Agency has just released a report that projects oil supply and demand through the end of 1998. Demand for oil will climb sharply, the IEA says, but growth in supply will outstrip it. Result: lower prices.
So, let's see. Cheaper oil plus no new carbon taxes equals... ah, well. Good luck to those of us who were hoping to see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions anytime soon.
TODAY ON THE SITE
For top-notch references to the Web world of environmental taxes, check out our High Five feature on Taxes by the redoubtable Andrew Hoerner.
Recent "Today" columns:
7/09: Mexico
7/08: By the Sea, By the Sea
7/07: Huddled Masses
7/03: Three-Dot Environmentalism...
7/02: Bothersome Science
7/01: Forest for the Trees
6/30: Investing in Pessimism
6/27: Good Speech (Keep it Quiet)
6/26: Bleeping Joan of Arc
6/25: The World at 42nd Street
To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.