Money quote:the U.S. imports nearly nine million barrels of oil per day and burns nearly a billion metric tons of coal annually. China's coal burning is even larger and continues to grow by leaps and bounds.The obvious conclusion is that we need to put pressure on China to stop burning coal. Reportedly Obama is going to put pressure on Congress to impose a carbon tax; Congress should reply with a tax on Chinese consumption of coal. That is where the growth of carbon consumption is at - and there’s nothing the government in Washington can do - or even wants to do - about it.It’s much like liberals’ schemes to “reduce gun violence.” They define the problem as gun violence so they can pretend that what they want to do - disarm the public - would “solve” the problem. If you define the problem as violence in general, then they have to consider the real-world reasons honest people buy guns in the first place. Thousands of gun owners, in point of fact, for every annual gun murder. Which would drive you to the conclusion that the public is willing to pay for, and take trouble to secure, a "violence potential" equalizer.
If all you cared about is gun violence, you could reduce that by the mere expedient of eliminating the penalties for non-gun violence. Then muggers would spend time in the weight room so they could accomplish their violent ambitions without guns. And the victims would feel so much better, being battered by a club. </sarcasm>
In November I saw a Democrat let the cat out of the bag. The carbon tax is a trickle down tax. It is imposed on energy producers that raise their rates and then it is paid by all who buy energy.
The Democrats have painted themselves in a corner. They can’t tax the income of those who have been bought off. That is suicide. The trickle down tax gets to them. The masses who don’t pay, will pay.
For reasons I don’t know, they prefer the hidden tax to say the VAT or the Fair Tax or the Flat tax.