Thoughts at large

[oladub]

CV, My post had to do with teaching children moderation as a way of addressing global warming. You are to some extent promoting government penalties to do the same.

We already have sin taxes bringing in revenue from alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Taxing soda pop as being unhealthy wouldn’t be much different.

Nor am I opposed to some of your suggested transfer of taxes. One estimate is that the U.S. spends $81B/year protecting foreign oil supplies. That is a hidden oil subsidy of $11.25/barrel. I don’t know what Europe, Japan and other countries pay to protect their sources of oil but since the U.S. is largely oil independent, transferring the annual $81B from our income tax and other taxes to the gas pump as a use tax would encourage EV’s and alternative domestic energy. Better yet, we should let other countries pay their share so we wouldn't have so much of a subsidy or tax expense. Airline passengers could pick up the cost of building airports. Subsidies distort the market. Changes would create havoc but they could be made over a period of years.

After Al Gore lost, he became involved with setting up market for carbon tax credits. While he was telling Americans the world was going to end, he was scheming to profit from their fears. I would rather end government subsidies to cut taxes or the federal debt than make market decisions.Otherwise we get more Solydras.

We do need to raise taxes if neither the President nor Congress will cut spending even before considering all the new trillion$ of programs being proposed by Democrats. The Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended doing both to reduce deficits and the federal debt. I would prefer import taxes to the extent we need to raise taxes but our need for increasing taxes is so great that luxury taxes would be better than more middle class income taxes.

I agree that any successful effort to teach moderation would displease not only private but some government lobbies.