A Republican Sponsored “Carbon Tax” in my lifetime? Maybe…
There as a very interesting article in the New York Times today by N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard. He was an adviser to President Bush and is advising Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
In the article, titled “One answer to global warming: a new tax,” Mankiw (presumably a Republican by his credentials) argues a strong case in favor of carbon taxes. He quotes Gilbert Metcalf, a professor of economics at Tufts, who he says has shown how revenue from a carbon tax could be used to reduce payroll taxes in a way that would leave the distribution of total tax burden approximately unchanged.
Do my eyes deceive me, or are there pockets of enlightenment within the Republican Party? With leadership from people like Mankiw, is it possible in my lifetime to transform the Republican Party? Could it possibly in my wildest dreams make the transition from its ”do nothing” see-no-evil politics of pollution to an environmental global leadership position?
Despite Mankiw’s welcome article, the silence is deafening from the Republican Party when it comes to global warming. Yet, the Moderate Liberal finally sees a tiny glimmer of hope from the jokers on the right.