Cap and Trade = Tax and Spend

Nick Gillespie | June 4, 2008

Shikha Dalmia, a policy analyst for Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website, writes in The New York Post:

Cap-and-trade is really just another name for tax-and-spend. Just as tobacco taxes haven't eliminated smoking, a cap-and-trade tax won't eliminate global warming. Even if the bill works exactly as promised, it would cut global CO2 concentration by only 4 percent, which wouldn't produce even a measurable drop in temperatures.

Whole thing here.

A few weeks back, Dalmia wrote about China and the Olympics for Business Week. Here's a snippet of that:

China-bashers believe that allowing China to own U.S. government debt is tantamount to putting a nuclear bomb in its hands: All that Beijing needs to do is dump U.S. bonds. This will crash the U.S. dollar, especially now, when it is already in a weakened state, making it useless as the world's reserve currency, the main source of America's status as the world's economic superpower.

But should China attempt to detonate this bomb, its own economy would be buried under debris long before America even heard the explosion.

More here.

Dalmia's reason archive here.

Comments

Colin Clout|6.4.08 @ 9:52AM|#

It is significant that Beijing recently held talks with a representative of the Dalai Lama.

Why is that meeting significant as opposed to the previous meetings?

|6.4.08 @ 10:12AM|#

But should China attempt to detonate this bomb, its own economy would be buried under debris long before America even heard the explosion.

This has been my point all along when this tired claim is made. China owning US debt gives China a stake in the solvency of the US. The more it owns, the more it has at risk. If anything, Chinese ownership of US debt gives the US an economic weapon, not China.

Episiarch|6.4.08 @ 10:14AM|#

Cap-and-trade is really just another name for tax-and-spend.

Has a single politician actually said this yet and called bullshit on the whole proposal? Someone like Coburn?

Stop Global Warming|6.4.08 @ 10:16AM|#

Bleah! Why should polluters be given credits because they polluted in the past?

The U.S. is going broke. Tax carbon. Better to tax than run deficits when we know that the number of people working is going to go down in the near future.

And should libertarians succeed in cutting spending, a carbon tax could replace one of the existing major federal taxes.

robc|6.4.08 @ 10:17AM|#

R C Dean,

Ditto for me. I keep pointing this out without any signs of others understanding it. As I was typing the previous sentence, I figured out the analogy:

China is the banks holding the subprime mortgages. The US is the leveraged to the hilt homeowner. The only difference is, if we walk away, China doesnt have anything to foreclose upon.

Neu Mejican|6.4.08 @ 10:24AM|#

Isn't this the same "analyst" recommending the Hummer as the green transportation choice?

Neu Mejican|6.4.08 @ 10:27AM|#

Not that I think Cap and Trade is the best plan...

I just have doubts about the veridicality of statements based on Dalmia's analysis.

|6.4.08 @ 10:27AM|#

I've owed people money and they've owed me money. I felt powerless as the lender, but powerful as the lendee. China must be shitting a bit holding so much of our debt.

Anyway, eventually our economic malaise will spread. Some years down the road, we'll likely lead the recovery. Been there, done that.

|6.4.08 @ 10:43AM|#

Isn't this the same "analyst" recommending the Hummer as the green transportation choice?

CNW's latest analysis still shows the H3 beating all hybrids in their dust-to-dust cost comparison.

|6.4.08 @ 10:45AM|#

The U.S. is going broke. Tax carbon.

Further burdening the economy will only accelerate the US "going broke."

If you mean the federal government is going broke, well, that's different. The only way to prevent that from happening is to cut spending. Higher taxes get spent on mo' bigger programs, every time.

Russ 2000|6.4.08 @ 10:55AM|#

But should China attempt to detonate this bomb, its own economy would be buried under debris long before America even heard the explosion.

And in the very next sentence Sikha quotes Cato's Dan Griswold who says the Chinese aren't big players. Which means they have no bomb to detonate.

But hyperbole sells, not reason.

Neu Mejican|6.4.08 @ 10:55AM|#

MP,

And...?

Neu Mejican|6.4.08 @ 11:04AM|#

http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Transportation/T07-01_DustToDust.pdf

An analysis of the Dust-to-Dust on the H3...

|6.4.08 @ 11:25AM|#

An analysis of the Dust-to-Dust on the H3...

Long on whining about CO2 emissions (a topic not covered in the Dust-to-Dust profile) and short on showing where the Dust-to-Dust model is faulty. Essentially, the report says "See, our model has different results!" without doing a comparative analysis on the models.

|6.4.08 @ 11:30AM|#

CNW's latest analysis still shows the H3 beating all hybrids in their dust-to-dust cost comparison.

That can't be a serious llist. It had the Maybach listed, but not the Veyron. Hmmph.

|6.4.08 @ 11:31AM|#

And...?

And I wasn't involved in the original thread about that article. When I looked at the article, and the CNW analysis today, I didn't see anything obviously improper.

The net result of the CNW analysis is to buy an easy to produce, fuel efficient, non-hybrid. Not too surprising, really.

I'm still wondering how hybrid owners are going to deal with the sticker shock when they get their first maintenance bill from the auto dealer.

reason sucks|6.4.08 @ 12:03PM|#

Nick Gillespie = http://www.lancingmanor.co.uk/lurch.jpg

Sam Grove|6.4.08 @ 12:37PM|#

And in the very next sentence Sikha quotes Cato's Dan Griswold who says the Chinese aren't big players. Which means they have no bomb to detonate.

What is meant is that if China holds the trigger to a bomb, the bomb is located in China, not the U.S.

|6.4.08 @ 1:01PM|#

I'm still wondering how hybrid owners are going to deal with the sticker shock when they get their first maintenance bill from the auto dealer.

Seeing as they've already concluded that the premium to buy a hybrid is justified by the incremental increase in self-regard, I imagine they will treat the high maintenance costs the same way.

TallDave|6.4.08 @ 1:08PM|#

The May satellite numbers are out. They find there has been no net warming since 1979, when measurements began.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/uah-global-temperature-dives-in-may/

TallDave|6.4.08 @ 1:11PM|#

But should China attempt to detonate this bomb, its own economy would be buried under debris long before America even heard the explosion.

Very true.

In a nonmonopoly siutation, the seller is generally prostrate before the buyer.

|6.4.08 @ 2:01PM|#

Re China: If you owe $10,000 then the bank owns you. If you owe $1,000,000 then you own the bank.

|6.4.08 @ 2:09PM|#

Why wouldn't I want to pay four hundred dollars per month for a new hybrid which will save me a hundred per month on gasoline?

Huh? Go on, answer me that.

Russ 2000|6.4.08 @ 4:47PM|#

What is meant is that if China holds the trigger to a bomb, the bomb is located in China, not the U.S.

No, what it meant is China's holdings of US debt is a minute portion of China's overall assets. Detonate the bomb and a couple of acres in a rural area of China get blown to bits. Less problem than the recent earthquake.

The Chinese bought the debt to get a foot in the tariff-free door to sell their exports, there was little expectation that the investments in said debt was anything but a sunk cost.

DannyK|6.4.08 @ 5:58PM|#

Did Shikah Dalmia write her article before reading George Will's op-ed which says essentially the same thing, in the same way?

TallDave|6.5.08 @ 3:35PM|#

No, what it meant is China's holdings of US debt is a minute portion of China's overall assets.

But the U.S. economy is a HUGE part of the export market that have pulled hundreds of millions of Chinese out of abject poverty.

This is a major reason why countries that have economic liberty tend not to war with each other.