White House senior adviser John Podesta speaks at the U.S. Center at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Podesta will replace John Kerry as U.S. special climate change envoy, according to a person …
Unfortunately for him, a few months later, Sen. Bill Cassidy — another Republican, this time from Louisiana — said the quiet part out loud and introduced legislation that directly imposed an energy border tax. Make no mistake; any tax on imported goods will be paid for by the American families and businesses that buy those goods. As a practical matter, the legislation proposed by Mr. Cramer would lay the foundation for a tax imposed by the bureaucracy and paid for by American families, companies and workers. Mr. Cassidy’s legislation would go ahead and impose that misery directly.
The senators know all of this. They also know that voters don’t want to pay this tax and are unwilling to do so. MWR Strategies — of which this columnist is president — has been asking for years how much people are willing to pay to address climate change. For years, the median answer has been about $40 a year.
Yet this legislation — and the Biden administration — would do all that. It would make energy more expensive, aggravate inflation and raise taxes to address climate change. That’s why the sponsors of the legislation have hidden their efforts to increase energy prices in a verbal smoke screen about China. They know they are trying to sell an intensely unpopular idea.