Thank you, Jon Henke, for restoring my faith that there's at least someone on the right side of the political spectrum (broadly speaking) who has a brain when it comes to the issue of climate change. What should Republicans do instead? Propose a carbon tax.Just one correction: many Democrats, myself included, have advocated a revenue neutral carbon tax for years now. Many of us, myself included, have specifically proposed exactly what you do here: offsetting the carbon tax with cuts to the regressive payroll tax. In other words, my friend (and former netroots adversary in the Jim Webb-George Allen race), we're on exactly the same page here.
But, instead of a straight tax increase (as Democrats want), Republican should propose a carbon tax that replaces the payroll tax. That is revenue neutral, meaning there is no total tax increase.
P.S. This would also take the Republican Party away from idiotic, dangerous, self-defeating know-nothingism (as exemplified by Sarah Palin, "Joe the Plumber" and Eric Cantor) and back towards a Teddy Roosevelt Progressive party. That would make me very happy.
