We Need A Carbon Tax-and-Dividend, Yesterday

We at the TSAP have long been pushing for a carbon tax-and-dividend (aka fee-and-dividend, feebate, fee with rebate, revenue-neutral tax, or Alaska Permanent Fund) since we first heard about the idea.  Steve Stoft, James Hansen, Elon Musk, and even some very unlikely supporters like the recently ousted Secretary of State and former ExxonMobil CEO Rex "Ruthor" Tillerson are known to support it to one degree or another.  And the list is growing.

Aside from the primary (and urgent!) reason for it-- mitigation of climate cataclysm--there is also another pressing reason for it:  simple justice.  The distributional impacts of a straight carbon tax (without any rebates) would be highly regressive, hitting poor people the hardest, and studies show that simply having the carbon tax replace other taxes would also be quite regressive as well.  And ignoring that fact would be a major intersectionality fail, to put it mildly.  But refunding 100% of the revenue to everyone in equal amounts would effectively make the tax quite progressive in practice.  And even better, it can also double as a Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all, or at least a viable gateway to such a thing.  Once it becomes normal for every citizen to receive even a small amount money unconditionally with no exceptions, then the Overton window of political acceptability would have shifted enough to make it possible to simply increase the amount and/or finance a larger UBI through other revenue sources as well.  After all, if everyone's on the dole, then no one's really on the dole.  And if everyone's a rentier, then no one's really a rentier.  Thus, the idea transcends the left-right political spectrum and becomes an idea that even hardcore libertarians and right-wing populists/producerists can support, not just the left.

What better time than now?