Last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would slap taxes on carbon-dioxide emissions via, of course, taxes on fossil fuels.
On September 10, Bloomberg News reported: “The carbon tax, which would be enacted next year, will be 17 euros ($24.71) per ton of carbon-dioxide emissions, Sarkozy announced today in eastern France.” The story went on later: “Sarkozy will have to overcome the Socialist-led opposition and critics in his Union for a Popular Movement who say the tax will hurt the poor and handicap employers.”
Good for the … well … Socialists (!!!???) – France can be strange.
Anyway, Bloomberg also noted: “Sixty-five percent of French voters oppose the tax, an Ifop opinion poll for Paris Match magazine showed this week.”
Good for the French.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Sarkozy actually said: “We cannot keep on taxing labor, taxing capital, and ignore taxes on pollution.” Huh? Three points come to mind. First, CO2 is not pollution. Second, taxing CO2 amounts to indirectly taxing labor and capital, as consumer and investment costs rise. Third, just because one taxes labor and capital, it does not follow that emissions must be taxed.
Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
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