| 摘要 | Over the last two years, the United States has scaled back Obama-era climate change policies, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and rolling back climate-related regulations. But it has not pursued alternative ways to address the risk climate change poses to our environment and our economy.
With Democrats back in control of the House and the days of Republicans’ climate change denial seemingly coming to an end, organized camps have weighed in recently with starkly different ideas for reducing carbon emissions and moving to a clean-energy economy.
In one corner, there is the Green New Deal, a massive agenda from progressive Democrats, endorsed by several leading presidential candidates and more than a hundred House and Senate colleagues, which would cost trillions of dollars in a command-and-control federal spending strategy that tightly dictates the path of the U.S. energy industry. Under this plan, all electricity would have to come from clean and renewable sources in just 10 years, and every building would have to undergo an energy retrofit. The Green New Deal also promises to guarantee healthcare services and economic security for all Americans.
In the other corner, there are more than 3,500 economists from across the political divide advocating for a market-based approach — specifically, a simple and uniform tax on carbon emissions.
These two approaches are polar opposites. The Green New Deal is wholly unaffordable, while a carbon tax could raise $100 billion a year or more in new revenues. The Green New Deal dictates how, when, and where the economy must decarbonize, while a carbon tax harnesses the power of the free market to encourage producers and consumers to make cost-efficient emissions reductions.
In short, the economists group, which includes all living former Federal Reserve Board chairs, 15 former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, and 27 Nobel Laureates, recognizes that putting a price on carbon emissions is the best way to get people and businesses to cut emissions. This could be through reduced demand for carbon-based energy, increases in renewable energy sources in our electricity networks, or an innovation down the road such as sequestering carbon and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
However, the carbon tax proposal supported by this broad array of economists has a significant flaw: It includes a new entitlement program in the form of a “rebate,” whereby the government sends a check every year to every person. The net effect of the carbon tax and rebate is a redistribution of income and the creation of what is essentially a universal basic income.
With a $49 per ton carbon tax, those with incomes in the top three deciles of the income distribution would, on average, pay more in taxes while those in the bottom 70 percent of the distribution would, thanks to a nearly $600 per person annual check, pay less. In this regard, the economists’ proposal is a slimmed-down version of the Green New Deal’s commitment to guaranteed economic security.
While we agree that a carbon tax is an effective and efficient way to address climate change, we caution against connecting this step to a universal basic income.
There is a better way. Lawmakers should embrace a carbon tax as a market-based strategy for curtailing carbon emissions, but they should use the revenues to reduce other existing distortionary taxes.
A research paper coauthored by one of us (Swagel) and sponsored by the Alliance for Market Solutions lays out the potential economic gains from using carbon tax revenues to reduce other taxes. As that paper notes, if policymakers are concerned about a carbon tax being regressive, a reduction in payroll taxes would be an appropriate solution, as it is close to distributionally neutral.
If policymakers want to maximize the growth impact, a reduction in the tax on capital income would be best. A mix of the two would set aside resources to protect the most vulnerable in society from negative impacts of the carbon tax while still offsetting adverse impacts of the tax on the overall economy. This approach would avoid the massive expansion in government spending that rebates would entail.
The good news is that the debate about how to address climate change is finally happening. But, given our nation’s already perilous fiscal situation, it is imperative that policymakers recognize that climate change policy can and must also be good economic policy. |
