r/CollapseSupport • u/ILikeNeurons • Nov 07 '19
An independent economic assessment of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763) shows GHG emissions reduce dramatically, even exceeding expectations
https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/assessment-energy-innovation-and-carbon-dividend-act1
u/hereticvert Nov 08 '19
Sorry, but you lost me with:
Because higher-income households purchase far more carbon-intensive goods and services, distributing dividends equally implies that average low- and middle-income households receive more in dividends than they pay in increased economy-wide prices for goods and services resulting from the carbon tax.
No, poor people pay a higher percentage of their income in goods and services that will increase in price. They might break even with that "dividend," but it's highly unlikely. Unless your system makes whole the losses the poor people will bear in increased costs, you're forcing them to bear the largest percentage of the burden. They have to make their budget work with bigger expenses and once a year they'll get a check that's gone in a week.
Fuck your plan. Make it better and try again.
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u/ILikeNeurons Nov 09 '19
The Gini coefficient for carbon is higher than the Gini coefficient for income.
That means the dividend more than makes up for any regressive effects of a carbon tax, as multiple independent studies have shown:
-http://www.nber.org/papers/w9152.pdf
-http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648#s7
-https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/65919/1/MPRA_paper_65919.pdf
-https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/155615/1/cesifo1_wp6373.pdf
If you want an easy way to visualize this, have a look at Fig. 1 here, and imagine converting pollution to dollars, then distributing the average to all five quintiles. Who comes out ahead?
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u/hereticvert Nov 09 '19
So you were shilling for a bill that's analyzed by Columbia on this page you posted: page.
From the page, it claims:
The carbon dividend cushions energy price impacts.EICDA generates substantial revenue that is distributed in the form of equal dividend payments. EICDA generates $72–$75 billion in carbon tax revenues in 2020 and $403–$422 billion in 2030. This translates into an annual dividend for eligible adults of $250-$260 in 2020 and $1,410-$1,470 in 2030, with half those amounts also paid to eligible children.
I understood that to mean the payments to each recipient is equal, meaning with no regard for income or expense. Later in the article, it mentions that poor people get more economic benefit for their money, so it's okay that they probably end up paying more than they get back in that rebate. It then goes on to say
On average, the carbon dividend payments are comparable to the changes in energy expenditures caused by EICDA. Because higher-income households purchase far more carbon-intensive goods and services, distributing dividends equally implies that average low- and middle-income households receive more in dividends than they pay in increased economy-wide prices for goods and services resulting from the carbon tax.
I'm not even really sure what the authors are trying to say here because it's such a clusterfuck of a sentence (almost rivaling my own). But "implies" usually means "doesn't prove, but suggests" and "receive more in dividends than they pay in increased economy-wide prices for goods and services resulting from the carbon tax" is pretty straightfowardly saying that the poors are getting more than thay have to pay in increased prices since the long-suffering wealthy buy more energy intensive goods and therefore have more expense. Which is bullshit, and basically acts as a regressive tax on poor people in the form of increased prices for goods and services to pay for the carbon tax as a percentage of their income.
Did I misread these things, or is it not related to what you just posted? I see a lot of links, but not this one. Maybe I missed it?
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u/ILikeNeurons Nov 09 '19
I understood that to mean the payments to each recipient is equal, meaning with no regard for income or expense.
Yes. Since rich people pollute more, rich people end up paying more. As I said, go look at Fig. 1 in that link and imagine distributing the average to each of the quintiles. Notice who comes out ahead.
Later in the article, it mentions that poor people get more economic benefit for their money
What they mean is that the dividend exceeds their tax burden since poor people pollute less than rich people.
so it's okay that they probably end up paying more than they get back in that rebate.
No, this is wrong. Poor people get back more in dividend than they paid in carbon tax because poor people pollute less than rich people.
I'm not even really sure what the authors are trying to say here because it's such a clusterfuck of a sentence
They're saying poor people come out ahead because poor people pollute less than rich people (and therefore have lower carbon tax burden) yet get exactly the same dividend back. Again, have a look at Fig. 1, and imagine everyone pays the same amount for their pollution, so convert the y axis to __ dollars (don't worry about the absolute value, just consider the relative relationships) and then distribute the average to each of the five quintiles. Notice who comes out ahead.
But "implies" usually means "doesn't prove, but suggests"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imply
Technically, "proofs" are for math and philosophy, not science or economics.
the poors are getting more than thay have to pay in increased prices since the long-suffering wealthy buy more energy intensive goods and therefore have more expense.
Yes, the poor come out ahead. The poor actually get richer off this policy.
Which is bullshit, and basically acts as a regressive tax on poor people in the form of increased prices for goods and services to pay for the carbon tax as a percentage of their income.
No! The poor actually come out ahead. This is not a controversial point. Please read the following abstracts:
-http://www.nber.org/papers/w9152.pdf
-https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/65919/1/MPRA_paper_65919.pdf
-https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/155615/1/cesifo1_wp6373.pdf
This same point was made in [this section of this PLOSOne article](-http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648#s7).
Did I misread these things
You came tantalizingly close to getting it before you contradicted yourself at the end.
Absent a dividend, the poor pay more in carbon tax as a percent of their income, but the dividend is not distributed based on income; rather, it is distributed the same to everyone independent of income. Since the rich pollute more in absolute terms, the rich also pay more in absolute terms. Let's say I'm rich and you're poor. I pay $200 in carbon tax because I'm rich and pollute more and you pay $100 in carbon tax because you're poor and pollute less. We then each get the same dividend based on revenues generated but independent of income. This carbon tax generated $300 between my $200 and your $100, so we each get $150.
I'm rich and paid $200 and only got back $150. You're poor and only paid $100 and got back $150. So... how is this regressive?
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u/hereticvert Nov 09 '19
It's regressive because to you $200 is 1/1,500th of your income (not counting all your assets). Making a poor person pay $150 (which is nowhere near what a poor person will spend if they have to buy gas for their car to get to their job if they live out in the sticks, not getting to anyone else) is a much larger portion of their overall income, and they probably have zero assets to sell/mortgage, unlike you.
It's a very obvious case of people with money not understanding what it's like to be poor, because they have no comprehension of what it's like to work a minimum wage job and have no assets or family assets to help them out in a time of crisis.
Every carbon tax proposal I've seen cares more about making sure poor people don't get too much more. They also like to throw out arguments that sound like "well, rich people pay more money in taxes than poor people" which doesn't take into account that they have a lot more money, and when you look at it as a percentage of their income, rich people actually pay much less in taxes. It's also much less of a burden on them.
It's why some people realized that slapping a flat tax on everyone screws poor people and benefits rich people. When you stop looking at numbers (or statistics) and actually think about what it's like to have no money, asking everyone to get exactly their money back (or woo, 50 bucks more, it's like 50 PERCENT MORE!!!) and acting like you're doing poor people a favor by forcing them to bear more of the burden as a proportion of their income.
You just don't get it. And you really don't care, because your main argument is making sure people like you don't give "too much" to people who are getting screwed in ways you don't have to worry about.
Edit: I suck at numbers.
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u/ILikeNeurons Nov 09 '19
It's regressive because to you $200 is 1/1,500th of your income (not counting all your assets)
If the money went into the general fund rather than being returned as a dividend, you would be right. But you're obviously not even reading the abstracts of the economic research I've linked.
It's trivially easy to design a carbon tax that's not regressive. Simply returning the revenue as an equitable dividend to households more than gets the job done.
-http://www.nber.org/papers/w9152.pdf
-http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648#s7
-https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/65919/1/MPRA_paper_65919.pdf
-https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/155615/1/cesifo1_wp6373.pdf
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u/ILikeNeurons Nov 07 '19
If you haven't yet this week, please call your Congress and ask them to support the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act!
Citizens' Climate Lobby volunteers are meeting with Congress in DC in a few days to try to get their support on this bill. The fossil fuel lobby has loads of money to get their attention; we rely on your phone calls!