China -- Uber Capitalist
I hate taxes. But if someone put a gun to my head and made me tell them my "favorite" tax, it would be pollution taxes. I consider pollution taxes as the most market driven way to counter pollution. I was about the only person in the United States who favored Bill Clinton's BTU tax (other than Bill and maybe Hillary). Taxing people on the harm they cause just seems pretty in tune with free market ideals and I like free markets.
I mention all of this because there is talk coming out of China of instituting a pollution tax. This is still very much in the talking stages, but even just talking about this shows how quickly China's private sector is breaking free of government command and control. In China's old days (only a few years ago) someone from Beijing would have just instructed the factories to do xyz, though reducing pollution would never have been on that list. More and more China seeks to influence through taxes, rather than control through commands.
On a less capitalistic note, China just banned the buying and selling of human organs. China may be heading towards capitalism, but not so much that it will allow this. I may like free markets, but I oppose legalizing organ sales.
Comments (1)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endwhatever - March 29, 2006 10:02 PM
A BTU tax doesn't differentiate between clean energy like natural gas versus coal, which is, of course, dirtier.
Then there are already the huge taxes on energy. Oil is taxed when pumped out of the ground (if produced domestically), taxed when it is refined, and taxed again at the pump several times (state, federal and sales tax).
And with property taxes souring and the middle and lower classes being forced to live farther and farther out in the burbs, what you are really doing is taxing those who can't afford to work where they live (and don't talk about mass transit, which isn't available in most major cities).
And it is unfair to those who have high heating costs because they live in the north, or have high cooling costs because they live in the south. So the government will start subsidizing the tax for the "poor", and the well off aren't going to change their termostats since they are inelastic about their energy use, so the amount of change this idea will provide: zero.
This is one of those taxes that sounds good to people who don't really think through the real world implications.