Give. Gov. Jay Inslee one thing: On environmental issues, at least, the man doesn’t often hide his intentions. He might fudge the impact of his plans, sure, but he’s pretty upfront about what he wants.
What Inslee wants more than anything is a price on carbon, any way he can impose it. He devoted the bulk of his State of the State speech to it, telling legislators that “it is our state’s destiny – because of who we are – to defeat climate change.”
Inslee’s requested bill, SB 6203, would impose a carbon tax at $10 per metric ton to start, beginning in July 2019. It would then increase in $2 increments until reaching $30 per metric ton.
What that means for Washington families is higher prices at the pump and higher home heating costs. Washington is already one of the least carbon-intensive states, due in no small part to the fact that much of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams and nuclear power. Bringing down carbon consumption here, then, means targeting drivers and manufacturers.
Sounds good, until it doesn’t
If you simply ask voters, without context, if they’re open to a carbon tax, many will say yes. A recent Moore Information poll of Washington voters asked if they would support a carbon tax if the money went to actions that mitigate climate change.
53% said they would, while 42% said no.
But when voters were presented with actual costs, they turned against the idea pretty quickly People don’t want greatly increased gas prices. They don’t want higher home heating costs. But that’s what Jay Inslee is proposing.
Asked if they would support a carbon tax that increased gasoline prices by $.20, 70% of voters said no. Even among Seattle respondents, the support level couldn’t crack 50%. 72% said no to a carbon tax if it meant natural gas prices increased by 20%.
Initiative failed barely more than a year ago
As legislators debate Inslee’s carbon tax, his environmental allies in Olympia are urging them to pass it. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, they’re also telling lawmakers that if the carbon tax doesn’t pass this year, they’ll put an initiative on the ballot that goes farther than Inslee’s proposal.
Part of their threat is that the polling – according to them – looks really good. Pass the carbon tax, the message goes, or we’ll come out with an even higher tax and the voters will say yes.
That’s tougher to believe now, given Moore Information’s poll. In initial polls, voter support for initiatives often starts out fairly high (see the “high earners” income tax, the initial liquor privatization initiatives, and many others). But when voters learn more about the downsides, including the hit to their wallets, those numbers start dropping.
The Moore poll bears that out. Tell voters that gas prices will increase $.20 (and go higher yet from there), and support drops off precipitously.
Of course, we don’t really need polls to tell us this. Barely more than a year ago, in the 2016 election, voters were presented with I-732, a revenue-neutral carbon tax that would have offset the tax with reductions in the sales tax. Voters turned it down with a 59.25% no vote.
Now we’re to believe, just a short time later, that voters are all gung-ho for a carbon tax that will actually cost them money? That an electorate that just turned down, handily, a revenue-neutral carbon tax is very enthusiastic about a tax-raising carbon tax? That’s a real stretch – and legislators should bear it in mind as they hear the threats to take this issue to the ballot.
Take it to the voters asshole. It will fail miserably. Not that it will shut you or your BS “green” agenda down. 🙁
Bill: Why would they take it to the voters? They know what’s best for voters and will force it upon us administratively!
Exactly, that is why Inslee and his green thugs will avoid this at all cost.
The Idiot needs to work on getting 70+% off of public assistance. Duh! But the democrats need their votes! Wake Up People! There might be a global weather change but it’s not from Carbon. This earth has always had weather changes.
It’s not a carbon tax. It’s a carbon dioxide tax. Call it what it is. Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless, completely inert gas that is not a pollutant but a vital part of the O2/CO2 cycle that created and enables life on earth. It’s what you exhale. Carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere at 400 ppm or 0.04%. If Washington State were able to go to 0.00 ppm of CO2 propagation, requiring us to, essentially, depopulate the state, the CO2 present in the atmosphere would remain at 400 ppm, or 0.04%. Taxing carbon dioxide to defeat climate change is nothing but a bold-faced reach by Sleepy Jay into your pocket to take your money to endear himself to the environmentalist whack jobs (Tom Stayer) in an effort to propel him on to the national political stage. Sleepy Jay, you’re a moron. And a tool of the progressives. Breath in. Breath out. Go home.
Can I double like this this?
Approved as requested. Approved as requested.
Exactly. My CO2 foot print in WA is going to zero… because I’m taking my wealth else where. The Jay soy boys and their pink pussy hat men haters will run out of everyone elses money.
SIGH, JAY, JAY, JAY, are your REALLY still signed onto the ICLEI.org and the Agenda 21, Global Supremacist Ideology of the UN World Environmental Constitution of 2012? Obama tried to sneak it past us implementing it via 4,000 rule changes every 90 days to existing law some 100 years old, and slipping them into the FEDERAL REGISTER simply by a list of NUMBERS ? All the Sustainability Programs, Goals 2030, Goals 2050 and Carbon Tax are Funding Mechanisms for the World Environmental Constitution Central Government.. If you don’t understand It yourself. Please assign some aids to study it and explain it to you. I advised Chris Gregoire to do the same when she joined ICELI.org. She did so and, two weeks later, she suspended her campaign to run for another term as Washington’s Governor. Smart. She found wisdom.
Spendslee will bankrupt all of us!
Funny how our state government operates.
We vote for or against something and it is always turned around to what they want anyway.
Vote for $30 car tabs and suddenly new ways or increasing it are invented.
Vote a definite NO on carbon tax and comrade inslee insists that we get a tax because it is our destiny.
It almost makes one think the place we live is no longer the land of the free but quickly becoming a dictatorship ran by comrade inslee and seattle.
Perhaps he should concentrate on oh stopping the eruption of volcanoes, or maybe something closer to controllable, forest fires that cover over half of the state in a thick blanket of smoke for several weeks each summer. Try going with the will of the people for a change and not with dictatorial ideals.
It is high time we start filing lawsuits against the state for taxation without representation. The Constitution guarantees that won’t happen. Yet it seems every time the voters turn down a tax, the state passes it any way. Take the state to court. End this nonsense.