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Home Front: Culture Wars
Gore says tax pollution, not payrolls. IRS jails gore for being a polluting gasbag.
2006-09-19
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Monday suggested taxing carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees' pay in a bid to stem global warming.
Note to Al: I would tax the volcanoes, too. And Cattle as they are the top producers of Methane...a more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2. And you...you mindless gasbag.
"Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution," Gore said in a speech at New York University School of Law.

The pollution tax would replace all payroll taxes, including those for Social Security and unemployment compensation, Gore said. He said the overall level of taxation, would remain the same. "Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees it would discourage business from producing more pollution," Gore said.
Which would discourage hiring. Amazing how that works. It's called, 'economics'.
Gore, a longtime environmentalist, also proposed that the United States re-join any successor to the U.N. Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming beyond 2012.
I wondered how long it would take al reuters to bring up the discredited Kyoto treaty.
A number of but not allScientists believe global warming is caused by the trapping of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, in Earth's atmosphere. The consequences of this climate change might include rising seas, stronger storms and intense heat waves. Under the Kyoto global warming treaty, 35 industrialized nations -- but not the United States -- have agreed to cut carbon dioxide emissions to below 1990 levels.
Which none of them have actually done.
President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto pact in 2001, saying its caps on greenhouse gases would cost jobs."The absence of the United States from the treaty means that 25 percent of the world economy is now missing. It is like filling a bucket with a large hole in the bottom," Gore said.

Gore's proposals may be too radical to gain much support and are likely to be opposed by some business interests. Many power companies are watching the U.S. government's every step on global warming. Any future national plan in the United States, the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, to regulate such gases could force many companies to shut down coal-fired generation or add expensive carbon-capturing devices to their equipment.
Al, AL, Al. Why don't you take up drunkeness and carrousing like Ted Kennedy?
Posted by:Clitch Slavising3387

#8  This is a sensible idea, it's silly to attack the messenger.

If there were a market in CO2 reclaimation and the money raised from taxing CO2 (as a proxy for real pollution externalities) only went there then the tax would be recycled away from the government, where it does most harm. It would also move the west away from subsidising wahabist oil.

It would be an excellent idea to move away from taxing income (punishing job creation and working).

A small tax on the value of property ringfenced for the police, army and judiciary who defend it's value via property rights could also be justified.

For the rest of the socialist taxes the bin should held wide open.

P.S. CO2 is not a pollutant and is a lagging track of the global temperature as #1 said.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan   2006-09-19 12:39  

#7  check out the link - it's true and Gore couldn't deny it in his 2000 campaign
Posted by: Frank G   2006-09-19 10:47  

#6  Frank! You dirt-digger!

You makin' that up?

If not, you ought to e-mail it to Jimmy Carter's peace foundation.
Posted by: Bobby   2006-09-19 09:57  

#5  Al Gore: Environmentalist, Zinc Miner

On his most recent tax return, as he has the past 25 years, Vice President Al Gore lists a $20,000 mining royalty for the extraction of zinc from beneath his farm here in the bucolic hills of the Cumberland River Valley. In total, Mr. Gore has earned $500,000 from zinc royalties. His late father, the senator, introduced him not only to the double-bladed ax but also to Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., which sold the zinc-rich land to the Gore family in 1973.

It also seems that zinc from Mr. Gore's property ends up in the cool waters of the Caney Fork River, an oft-celebrated site in Gore lore. A major shaft and tailings pond of the Pasminco Zinc Mine sit practically in the backyard of the vice president's Tennessee homestead. Zinc and other metals from the Gore land move from underground tunnels through elaborate extraction processes. Waste material ends up in the tailings pond, from which water flows into adjacent Caney Fork, languidly rolling on to the great Cumberland.

Posted by: Frank G   2006-09-19 09:48  

#4  "Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees it would discourage business from producing more pollution," Barry Goldwater Gore said.

He's finally flipped. This has as much of a chance as - no, way less than - a flat tax. He's just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. Hillary'd be proud.
Posted by: Bobby   2006-09-19 07:08  

#3  gardener
Posted by: tabd   2006-09-19 04:02  

#2  This seems an unfair tax on the rich to me. Limosines and personal Jets put out so much more CO2 than your average SUV. Plus heating the 9000+ sq foot house. pool, hot tub, empty guest house and slave maid/gardner quarters.
Posted by: tabd   2006-09-19 04:01  

#1  That would be the Global Warming that isn't happening. CO2 levels continue to rise at a record rate. Meanwhile global temperatures peaked in 1998.

Correlation does not prove causation, but the absence of correlation is categorical proof of the absence of causation.
Posted by: phil_b   2006-09-19 02:52  

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