There’s a lot of “it depends” imo. New technologies with small markets should be directly subsidized imo. A relatively small amount of money can be used to make the technology competitive, but still keep pressure on the industry to lower costs. That has worked wonderfully with solar and wind. Now that the costs are competitive and mostly lower than the competition, I think a combination of:
(1) Outright limiting the amount of carbon/pollution an energy source can emit and aim to cut out the x% of the worst sources.
(2) Tax emissions to keep pressure up for speeding the transformation as well as encourage energy efficiency
I think there should still be subsidies for energy storage and zero emission vehicles and the wind and solar subsidies should continue to taper off, which they are.
I think that’s the best way to use policy to drive the change anyway. The concern about it being regressive is mostly political, but real. You could use the carbon tax revenue in lots of progressive ways, but the public won’t always see the connection so clearly. If energy taxes are opposed you could continue to take revenue only from progressive sources like income or wealth taxes and subsidize clean energy, but that’s not necessarily easy politically either. In the real world, maybe a little of each. I think at this point a carbon tax/pollution restrictions are probably a more efficient way to change behavior though.
This is why it HAS to be a specifically labeled check that every citizen gets no less often than monthly. If it didn’t cost much I’d make it weekly or even daily. Prices on some items that require a lot of carbon will go up. Prices on other things should stay the same or only go up a little. Poorer citizens will happily keep the money, change their behavior a tad to keep their costs similar, and profit. Richer citizens will just pay what it costs to keep living their current lifestyle… which subsidizes the UBI check of the poors.
We’ve got to stop being scared of just giving people cash. The bottom 60% of the population is doing really bad and that’s causing significant economic and social problems. In France there wouldn’t be yellow vest protests if the average person could see that they were being compensated for costs on some things going up. Then most of them would keep the stuff they couldn’t live without and greatly reduce what they could. Which is literally the goal of the carbon tax.
Is there any evidence that John Delaney was actually a member of Congress? His district is just some weird piece of land that doesn’t even look like it should be in Maryland, so no one would know the difference. Hell, I could probably say I’m from that district and nobody would question me.
I just really struggle with the concept that this guy actually won three elections.
Look at the wikipedia on his replacement, David Trone (came out on the record in support of starting an official impeachment inquiry yesterday). You’ll get an idea of the thunder that district brings.
The district is really just Montgomery county, which is the most progressive area in the state (Baltimore votes more heavily dem but I don’t think it’s a particularly progressive city). All of that chunk of western Maryland is very red, but also sparsely populated. It’s a super gerrymandered district.
Unfortunately, while MontCo is progressive, it’s also a DC suburb and so you end up with a lot of rich white guys with a lot of influence. Trone ran for something else back in 2014 when I lived in MontCo, maybe senate against Van Hollen? He’s been spending a ton of money with not a lot of party support for years trying to get into congress.
I think I read that he ran for a vacated House seat in 2016, and lost. I think it said he put something like $13 mil of his own money into that one (going off of memory). He ran for and won Delaney’s seat (with Delaney’s backing) when he retired from Congress in 2018.
Ah yeah that makes sense. Van Hollen’s old seat when he went to the senate. And I moved to bmore in summer 2016 so I voted in MontCo for the primaries that year.
I don’t think so. Howard County is where the klan is when they shipped Wallace out to live with his grandparents or whatever. Anne Arundel County was the jurisdiction they tried to pin the girls in the shipping can on. I don’t think there were any other county related plot lines I can remember
IIRC the politicians used to talk about beach houses near Chesapeake Beach (Calvert County) too, which was always hilarious to me because I do not understand why any rich person would want a beach house there.
Fun Calvert County fact, the flag is literally a tobacco leaf.
iirc Moco is literally the wealthiest county in America. Bethesda, Potomac, and Chevy Chase are all ridic wealthy. Tons of terrible rich people that think they are woke; I grew up there and lived there for like 20 years
Can confirm MoCo is not great politically. Culturally diverse, nice place to live, but the politics are driven by money and disinterested voters who will vote straight D. Ideal place for Delaney and Trone types to thrive.
Montgomery county is rich, but not quite the richest. The DC suburbs in Northern Virginia and MD have ~ all of the $. (All 5 of the top 5 richest counties by household)
