Voters Love The Military

ThinkProgress:

Gallup came out with the latest version of its confidence in institutions poll, the kind of survey that I think sheds more light on real public opinion dynamics than do polls on “the issues”:

This kind of thing is why it’s hard to cut the defense budget, even though voters seem relatively friendly to the idea of cutting the defense budget. No member of Congress in a tough race wants to be in a fight with a general in a country where people have enormous confidence in generals and almost no confidence in Congress. I also think it’s interesting that people have much more confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court than they do in other branches of government that are sometimes said to have more democratic legitimacy. The hurly-burly of active participation in actual politics may, in practice, serve to be delegitimizing. Operating in secret, wearing uniforms or robes, and staying above the fray seems to be the road to respect.

If we need taxes, why not pollution taxes?

Btad Plumer:

So why not do that through a tax on carbon pollution or other assorted environmental unpleasantries? After all, if we have to raise revenue, we may as well slap higher taxes on behavior we'd like to discourage (like pollution and congestion) rather than, say, labor, no?

At least in rarefied think-tank circles, that idea's gaining favor. Four of the six groups that recently sketched out deficit-reduction plans for the Peter G. Peterson Solutions Initiative ended up advocating a new carbon tax as part of their proposals — including, note, the conservative American Enterprise Institute. And here's another reason to consider a shift: According to a new IMF paper with the irresistible title, "Reforming the Tax System to Promote Environmental Objectives: An Application to Mauritius," the United States gets, by far, the lowest percentage of revenue from environmental taxation of any OECD country:

In case that graph's too tiny, America's way over there on the far left, getting slightly less than 3 percent of its revenue from measures to discourage pollution. The average industrialized country gets about 6 percent. That's mainly due to the fact that many European countries put higher levies on gasoline. Still, compared with the rest of the world, we vastly undertax pollution. And changing this doesn't have to cripple the economy: Congress could always do things in a revenue-neutral manner, swapping in higher taxes on greenhouse gases (say) in exchange for lower payroll taxes.

The IMF paper, by the way, notes that there are a whole slew of different tax schemes to try to remedy dirty air, urban congestion, and greenhouse gases. If you want to deal with global warming directly, then a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax that affects the entire economy is your best bet. (This is different from a simple gas tax: Since a carbon tax is spread out evenly among the transportation, industrial and electric sectors, it tends to have a very modest effect on pump prices.)

If governments wanted to address externalities from cars directly (or try to curb oil use), there's the always-unpopular gas tax, sure, but there still are other options. Congestion pricing — charging people who drive during rush hour and take up valuable space — can unclog the roads. Feebates — extra fees on gas-guzzlers combined with rebates for, say, electric cars — can steer people toward more efficient vehicles. Then there's the old Dean Baker favorite, tax incentives to promote pay-as-you-drive insurance, in which your insurance premiums are set based on how many miles you travel in a year. (That last one doesn't necessarily raise revenue, but it does give people motivation to drive less if they can, which might push gas prices down a smidge.)

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