Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post is suggesting that a carbon tax is a "no-brainer" to combat climate change and will generate innovation. 

Here's the thing.  Taxing carbon is exactly how you get faster innovation.  That's kinda the point.

A carbon tax prices in, upfront, the hidden costs of burning fossil fuels, including pollution and the warming of the planet.  In the near-term, a carbon tax disincentivizes the purchase of carbon-intensive products, of course.  But over the longer-term, it also increases demand for – and thereby incentivizes the development of – cleaner, less-carbon-intensive technologies.  If you want to accelerate innovation in batteries, electric cars, solar, wind, etc., a carbon tax is a no-brainer.

I would ask her and all the others who suggest taxing the poor and middle class, "Which previous use taxes on the poor have generated innovation?"  Currently, the economy is doing well because we lowered taxes and allowed people and businesses to keep more of the money they earned.  But the greedy government and Democrats can't stand that, so they want more money.  Democrats not only want to raise the carbon tax, but also want to raise the motor fuel tax, and they want income taxes to go back up.  They also want Trump's deregulation moves to be reversed.  They truly want the government to have more power and money and more people to be dependent on government.

The leader of France, Emmanuel Macron (a big believer that humans cause climate change), has recently imposed huge carbon taxes on fuel, and in France, there have been massive riots.  It seems that somehow, the poor and middle class don't like that innovation.

I would ask where carbon taxes have worked to change the climate.  Tax credits sure didn't save the Chevy Volt.  It seems the people want vehicles that are actually comfortable and convenient.

Before we go the way of a huge regressive tax on business, individuals, and the economy as a whole, I would like Rampell and other journalists to address some easy questions related to this AP article that ran in the Washington Post in November 1922, which essentially predicted the same dire consequences as they predict today:

How did the ice caps come back if CO2, fossil fuels, and humans cause warming?

Which of the predictions from 1922 came true?

Why were the predictions so wrong and why would anyone believe current predictions of doom and gloom would be any more accurate than all the bad predictions from the last 100 years?

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.  Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.  Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.  Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

When we see the dire predictions of thousands of deaths because of a little warming or from storms, why don't they address the millions and billions of people who live longer and healthier lives thanks to all the products that exist because of fossil fuels?  Shouldn't we celebrate the fact that we live longer and try to help the poor in underdeveloped countries improve their quality and length of life also instead of relegating them to poverty and early death?

One final question: Does anyone truly believe that if the people hand bureaucrats and politicians trillions of dollars, they can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever – when they have shown that they can't balance a budget, can't handle V.A. wait times, and can't keep a promise that people can keep their doctor and keep their plan and that premiums would go down?  Isn't it naïve and arrogant to believe that people can control the climate?  That is akin to believing we can control the temperature on the Sun, solar activity, sunspots, and the orbit of the Earth.

I do agree with Ms. Rampell that it is a no-brainer to propose a carbon tax.  It takes absolutely no brains to propose it and believe that it will change the climate.  The only thing it would do is slow down the economy and give the greedy government and politicians more money and control.  Our freedoms would continually be eroded.

Image credit: Foundation for Economic Education.