It's been a few weeks since Al Gore give his speech proposing to replace the payroll tax with a pollution tax. I never did see a clear outline of this idea; what does "payroll tax" mean, exactly? And what would the taxes amount to? So I decided to work out the details.
I assumed that, rather than "payroll taxes", the program should eliminate the entire income tax. I also took the position that expeditures should be covered, not just receipts; no more deficit. On the other end of the equation, I chose to go for a single tax, a tax on carbon. The details are below. Suffice it to say that it comes to $3.19 per gallon of gas. Or, somewhere between $600 and $1,000 on a ton of coal (depending on how much carbon is in it). Or, 6.2 cents per cubic foot of natural gas (? - not sure about the calculation).
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