April 4, 2017

The White House Is Blowing Smoke on a Carbon Tax

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The Washington Post reports:

President Trump’s administration is exploring the creation of two controversial new taxes — a value-added tax and a carbon tax — as part of a broad overhaul of the tax code, according to an administration official and one other person briefed on the process.

Sure they are. This sounds more like a strategic leak to demonstrate “seriousness” on Trump’s part than anything that’s really under consideration. Just give it a moment’s thought:

  • Republicans hate both VATs and carbon taxes. Hate hate hate.
  • A package that included top marginal rate cuts, corporate cuts, plus a VAT and/or a carbon tax to make it revenue neutral, would be almost comically regressive. Democrats would hate it even if the carbon tax were for real.

There’s zero chance that anything like this could make it through Congress. The “administration official” peddling this is just blowing smoke.

UPDATE: Well, this little run up the flagpole didn’t last long:

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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