Originally Posted by
ndbiker
For the family making say 40K/year which will do the environment and the individual more good. An increase in their electric bill of say $120/yr or giving that person an incentive to replace his lights with compact flourescents, have an energy audit, or a rebate on caulking or insulation? You are right it will motivate the person to use less energy, but at the expense of his families comfort and leave him less money to actually do something about it. The guy making 500K per year might get a $500/yr increase which would affect him alot less but still might make him decide to put off buying that new refrig or washer. I'm not crazy about new taxes or subsidies but I'll take the government taking less of my money to alter my behavior over taking more of it any day. At least with subsidies it's my choice not their strong arming.
I think you have it backwards. The government would need to raise taxes considerably to pay for the incentives you propose. I am not opposed to incentives but to target all possible wasteful uses of energy you would need a massive (and expensive) program of numerous subsidies and incentives.
I would rather raise their energy bill by $!20 (in taxes) and lower their other taxes by $120. They would come out even at the start, but would now have an incentive to buy the compact flourescents and caulk their windows themselves to lower their energy bill. If they spent $50 doing that and saved $100 in energy costs, at the end of the day they would come out ahead.
Furthermore, if you combined a tax on energy with an across-the board fixed tax credit, it would be a progressive move. The rich guy would pay $500 in extra energy taxes and save $120 in other taxes, and the poor guy would pay $120 more in energy taxes and save $120 in other taxes, so the poor would benefit the most. However, the rich guy could still balance the tax impact, since he likely wastes more energy and has much greater opportunities to conserve and recoup the money.
People too poor to pay taxes would receive the $120 tax credit as a payout from the government.