NoaIzumiInvestor's Business Daily vs. James Hansen
January 7th 2009 16:53
The trilogy of the Jan. 2 Investor's Business Daily Editorial page concludes with their anti-AGW piece, "Green Comes Clean".
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Note the liberal use of terms like "real objective" "state coercion", and "collectivism".
IBD gets this story half right. The refund from the gas tax that Hansen proposes is progressive in nature, meaning that the rich would get less back, proportional to their income, than the poor or middle-class. You know, like the income tax is progressive? I know IBD likes to make the case that progressive taxation is equivalent to communism, but if that’s true, then the United States has been a socialist country for the last ninety years, and no one noticed.
What IBD doesn’t mention is that a gas tax is inherently regressive, at least partially. As a proportion of expenses, the rich spend less on gas than the poor and middle class, so a gas tax takes a smaller bite out of their income.
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Hence, a progressive dividend to even it out. It’s not a scheme to redistribute wealth to the poor, it’s a plan to counteract the redistribution of wealth to the rich.
Jim Hansen’s letter:
Really Long Link
As for the “ample reasons to doubt it” the editorial mentions, IBD must have a different definition of “ample” than I do, because I have never seen a reason to doubt AGW that held up under scrutiny. And I've been looking for a couple of years now. IBD doesn't go into detail on that point, but I rest assured that they will in future opinion pieces. And you can rest assured that you'll be hearing about it when they do.
Really Long Link
Note the liberal use of terms like "real objective" "state coercion", and "collectivism".
IBD gets this story half right. The refund from the gas tax that Hansen proposes is progressive in nature, meaning that the rich would get less back, proportional to their income, than the poor or middle-class. You know, like the income tax is progressive? I know IBD likes to make the case that progressive taxation is equivalent to communism, but if that’s true, then the United States has been a socialist country for the last ninety years, and no one noticed.
What IBD doesn’t mention is that a gas tax is inherently regressive, at least partially. As a proportion of expenses, the rich spend less on gas than the poor and middle class, so a gas tax takes a smaller bite out of their income.
Really Long Link
Hence, a progressive dividend to even it out. It’s not a scheme to redistribute wealth to the poor, it’s a plan to counteract the redistribution of wealth to the rich.
Jim Hansen’s letter:
Really Long Link
As for the “ample reasons to doubt it” the editorial mentions, IBD must have a different definition of “ample” than I do, because I have never seen a reason to doubt AGW that held up under scrutiny. And I've been looking for a couple of years now. IBD doesn't go into detail on that point, but I rest assured that they will in future opinion pieces. And you can rest assured that you'll be hearing about it when they do.
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