Comments

1
The inherent premise that taxation will alleviate global warming is flawed. It simply punishes people for using fossil fuels when they have no choice but to use them to get to work and to make a living.
Let the scientists just set limits, without all this awful punitive arrogance, extortion, and racketeering from Inslee and his ilk.
2

@1 fuck off.

3
@2: I'm sorry if I upset you.
4
@1: taxation INCENTIVIZES behavior. it makes the behavior (boozing, smoking weed, shooting bullets) pay its true cost.

i mean: ideally. the gas tax is a fucking joke.
8
@6 Washington was one of the first two states to legalize marijuana. It hadn't been done anywhere in the US before and now it's legal for a fifth of the population of the country and enjoys unprecedented popular support nationally. Do you think things will stop there?
Carbon tax can work the same way. BC's had one for years, all of Canada will have one soon.

This article fails to mention 2016's failed ballot initiative that would have refunded tax revenues to the people, compensating for gas price raises. It failed largely due to the lack of support from the environmental establishment, which pressed for a tax-increasing bill. Carbon taxation, like all excise taxes is inherently regressive, and the only way to implement it equitably is to refund the revenues by reducing other similar excise taxes, such as the sales tax. WA has the most regressive tax system in the nation at present.
9
@1-a carbon tax allows a person to decide how much tax they'll pay (do I buy a big car or a small one? Drive to work every day or take the bus sometimes?) A "limit" or ban would simply block people from having that choice. And far from being extortionate, a revenue-neutral carbon tax (not this one but consider the initiative from 2016) would not cost the taxpayers more on average.

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