Comments on Green Energy Tax Cuts: Apostle to Cato II

Thanks, Rachel, for the insightful comment. Jerry...

2009-01-12T14:50:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Rachel, for the insightful comment. Jerry can tell us for sure, but I think you are right that he simply misread my tax cut proposal as a tax credit proposal. Looking back, much of what he says makes sense if it refers to tax credits. I too may be guilty of misreading Jerry's remarks, in that I reacted as if Jerry where setting up a strawman. But your insight may be more on the mark.

Much of the stuff coming out of Cato is pretty goo...

2009-01-12T14:33:00.000-05:00

Much of the stuff coming out of Cato is pretty good, in my neo-con view, but Mr. Richardson has definitely found an inconsistency in their current energy policy. His green energy tax cut proposal is the freshest, cleverest free market strategy I have heard in a long time. Cato would be wise to make the issue their own, especially as it fits in so well with what other folks at Cato are doing and saying.

Both you and Jerry Taylor make many wonderful poin...

2009-01-12T05:27:00.000-05:00

Both you and Jerry Taylor make many wonderful points. I think Taylor is right that doing nothing is better than tax credits, subsidy, carbon tax. But it seems to me that he has misread your proposal, and much of this debate is a misunderstanding. He is reading it as a tax credit proposal, but it is not. Your point is a persuasive insight that I have not heard before, that tax cuts are entirely different from tax credits (or subsidy) in that government is simply getting out of the way vs throwing money at failure. Subsidy probably isn't even the right word for what you are describing. More an unburdening. And you probably are right that it could benefit the whole economy.

Jerry is also right that more debt should be avoided, so if your proposal is to work, it will be critical how it is designed, so that it is at least revenue neutral.

Nice to read a really good debate like this between libertarians.