Well, I’m not a fan of finding new things to tax. Our government tends to squirrel away a tax on this, then a tax on that, then before we realize it they’ve got 50% of our income.

Remember who pays a carbon tax. You and I do. We don’t get charged it directly, but we’ll be the ones paying it, in higher energy prices.

Basically, while I think in the short term it might reduce income taxes, in the long term I think it just adds another revenue stream and the income taxes will float right back up. Plus, given our current budget situation, who’s to say they’d even trade lower income taxes for the carbon taxes? I can see the politicians now, “Well, we need this money, but we’re not going to raise YOUR taxes, we’re going to raise them on those evil polluting corporations!” And most of the public will be duped into thinking they’re getting a deal, while their energy bills skyrocket.

Liberals can make the environment a priority and shift preferences away from “bad” fuels. Conservatives can move to a consumption based taxation system, and eventually, as the invisible hand along with our carbon tax shifts tastes to cleaner energy, the carbon tax will eventually be fazed out of our lives (thus killing a couple of taxes with one stone).

Is that workable?

I tried once, but gave it up. There is too much out there that is more useful and better written (or translated, I don’t know…I didn’t try to tackle the German).