CPR: California’s cap and trade program and cigarette tax increases have something in common — the more they encourage behavioral changes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and smoking, the less revenue they bring in. If the goal is to reduce the pollutants and the smoke then the programs can claim some success. But, these programs also appear to be about the money.
While the Legislature considered ways to divvy up the current cache of cap and trade money, tremors were felt through the system when the May cap and trade auction sold only 11 percent of the permits offered to business and fell far short of the expected revenues.
The cap and trade program is designed for companies to cap greenhouse gases or purchase permits at auction or traded in the market.
What happens if the polluting companies achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gases and do not need permits? more here
Were funds raised by these taxes intended only for amelioration of the particular issue this wouldn’t matter. But of course they were seen as cash cows, contributing money for the purchase of unicorns. Now how will they buy their unicorns? They need the unicorns. We can’t not have the unicorns.
Clearly what’s needed are government programs to promote smoking and greenhouse gas production. The only question is how to fund them. It might require new tax revenue, but it’ll be worth it.
The punitive cigarette taxes have always been explained away by all flavours of government as a method to pay for the increased health and social costs associated with smoking and to make smoking financially unviable. What utter garbage. The money from the taxes flows into general revenue and pays for whatever government program(s) is in vogue at the time. A number of years ago (about 15 or 20) a stats guy at the University of Waterloo played with the numbers (mostly for laughs I think although the outcome wasn’t funny for him) and worked out that smokers actually cost the social benefit system less then those that never smoked. He found that while they did consume a large amount of medical services they tended to consume it for a shorter period (because they tended to die quickly from a discovered lung cancer), fewer made it to retirement age so no pension for them nor was there an increasingly heavy bill for medical and social services as that pesky non-smoker used as they grew older. Anyway, a few other surprising things came out causing the anti-smoking crowd to come after the guy with pitch forks and torches, after all, this was their rice bowl he was breaking. In fairness, circumstances may have changed in the last 20 years however the billions collected and not spent on ameliorating the effects of smoking have not. The governments of all levels are as addicted to those taxes as a smoker is addicted to his/hers cigarettes.
Coming soon to a Federal program near you – California style lunacy. Productive people are moving elsewhere, and rather than recognize that they are the problem, the leftist solution is to make other states as unpalatable economically as California.
I am not worried in the least.
the state will always find something to tax.
just like they will always find something to spend it on.
and most of the money spent will recycle back in their campaign accounts, magically, of course.
the best magic words uttered are lies.
they open up a whole new world of make believe.
Wyatt,
That’s the whole point of the FedGov takeover – destroy the individual states’ abilities to be individual.
Centralization.
Socialization.
izlamization.
All initiative crushed under a single heel.
izlamo delenda est …
I see an opportunity for the drug cartels in smuggling untaxed cigarettes and firearms into California.
AC the cartels started doing that back in the late 80’s.
The cartels own Sacramento, so new markets are carved out for the cartels on a regular basis.
Currently, even something as simple as auto paint, if you want the quality paints you have to buy them from the cartel because the state has banned them.
It’s not just the productive people leaving CA; since dope is now legal here in OR, we are being flooded with even more slackers from down south!