Is Alaska's ex-governor right about taxing polluters?
Are mining, fuel tax, health reform all possible now?
| A couple of media people put forth some geonomic ideas. We trim, blend, and append two 2009 articles from (1) The Idaho Mountain Express, July 17, on a set of reforms, and (2) Slate.com, the very popular news site, July 24, on Alaskan taxes by Jonathan Rowe, a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly and YES! magazines, and a former staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor who does a weekly radio show on KWMR-FM in Point Reyes Station CA. |
by The Idaho Mountain Express editors and by Jonathan Rowe
- Is Alaska's ex-governor right about taxing polluters?
Consider another way to curb carbon emissions. We would start by repealing the federal income tax on individuals. Most of them, at least; keep the tax on the richest 5%, those who make somewhere north of $200,000 a year. That would provide $575 billion, 60% of the revenue the tax currently does.
We would keep the corporate income tax, however, and at a high rate.
How can we cut a major tax drastically and increase spending at the same time? Tax fossil fuels big time.
Every American would get an annual bonus, in the form of a dividend from the federal government. This is what Alaska does. In recent years, the dividend has been as high as $2,000.
This dividend -- plus the elimination of the income tax for most of us -- would take at least some of the sting out of higher energy taxes.
To keep the income tax for just the upper bracket would also restore Congress' original intention when it enacted the tax in 1913. The goal then was partly fairness -- the income tax balanced off the rest of the federal revenue system, which consisted of tariffs and excise taxes that fall heavily on those of modest means. But more, it was to exact a just return from those who accrue unearned gains from land and natural resources. (more info click here.) Wasting nature is a big contributor to climate change, so tax justice turns out to be environmental sanity as well.
Let's put this all together. Based on what Alaska does already, we would have taxes on sources of carbon in the atmosphere, the elimination of the income tax for the vast majority of Americans, and dividends for all. To this we would add limits on the emissions of carbon. We could even give it all a catchy name: a "climate dividend."
JJS: From public recovery of the value of using the atmosphere as a dumpsite to public recovery of the value of extracting things we all need and nobody made.
- Are mining, fuel tax, health reform all possible now?
Could this be the year when holdover political issues fall like ripe apples into sweeping reforms?
One, health care reform would be an historic accomplishment, an issue defying resolution since the days of President Franklin Roosevelt more than 70 years ago, now made easier by the growing support of various health care industry groups that see inevitability on the horizon.
Another is increasing the federal fuel tax as a way of encouraging fuel conservation and thus reducing pollution indirectly, while also providing more funds to overhaul the nation's roadways.
In an unprecedented move, the US Chamber of Commerce has thrown its support behind an increase in the tax, which hasn't been changed since 1993. The chamber agrees with a 2005 study recommendation to increase the current 18.4-cent tax by 10 cents now, and then 5 cents per gallon each year for the next few years.
A final feasible victory is reforming the Mining Law of 1872, enacted during the days of President Ulysses Grant. Royalties are the main issue. Hard rock mining, which includes gold, uranium, copper, and other minerals (but not coal and oil), pays no royalties to the government for operations on government land. For as little as $5 an acre of public land and paperwork, almost anyone can obtain title.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposes a royalty of 2 to 5 percent of the value of ore. Much of the royalty would be devoted to cleaning up more than 100 years of mining pollution at abandoned mines. The Environmental Protection Agency says 28 percent of environmental pollutants -- more than any other source -- come from hard rock mines. That translates to 3,400 miles of polluted streams and 440,000 acres of land.
Later, other vital reforms await action. The Central Intelligence Agency, impertinently ignoring its required reporting to Congress, needs tougher oversight. And Wall Street, whose rogue tactics have contributed to the economic meltdown, must be reined in and made accountable.
JJS: People say Wall Street but brokers and bankers are just indirect landlords who squeeze trillions from mortgages. Redirecting that flow of what we all spend for surface land would be the most fundamental reform. Meanwhile, it would do us and our planet good to make both polluters and depleters pay, two key features of geonomics.
---------------------
Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
|
Also see: Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees
Could political protest win economic justice?
Even as coal waste erupted, one city and one judge cooperated |
| Email this article | Sign up for free Progress Report updates via email |
What are your views? Share your opinions with The Progress Report:
| Page One | Page Two | Archive |
| Discussion Room | Letters | What's Geoism? |
