[ptaipale]

The tragedy of taxing bad things is that if the taxation works, and the bad things (e.g. pollution) start to go away, then the government loses tax revenue. And for the government, that's worse than any pollution.

So we see all governments going through loops and hoops to tax something bad, and at the same time regulate so that a sufficient amount of that bad thing still happens so they wouldn't lose the tax money.

[jfoutz]

Of course, this can be limited by requiring funds for a specific purpose, such as mitigating pollution. While far from perfect, gas tax going to pay for roads is a decent feedback loop.

Tax 'bad' thing, to pay for education about or mitigation of 'bad' thing. the feedback loop solves itself.

[mtempleton]

>then the government loses tax revenue.

Actually, this would not always be true. Yes, in many cases would, but it would depend on the elasticity of supply and demand. The total size of the tax incidence would be government revenue from the tax.

The idea is not necessarily to outlaw carbon emissions, but to set a tax equal to the economic burden the emissions place on the global economy.

But a tax such as this should be designed to be revenue neutral--which we as humans are capable of doing.

Even though these things are possible, economic policy is so filled with politics, and politics is so filled with corruption, that I have little to no hope it will change.

[jlebrech]

gov can just keep finding new things to tax.