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Jim Manzi braves the tedium of typing in a partial list of exemptions and carve outs inside the cap-and-trade bill working through Congress. It is not a small list. He concludes:
Calling some of these carve-outs âtransitionâ assistance is pretty funny, since they extend out to ... Continue reading »
Calling some of these carve-outs âtransitionâ assistance is pretty funny, since they extend out to ... Continue reading »
1 year ago
The other problem is that people think that government is mystical and superhuman, immune to the inherent selfishness of humanity.
1 year ago
Public choice theorizes that people will act in politics more or less as they act in markets: they will try to optimize their private benefit-cost function. Social policy to be enacted therefore has to have a private benefit-cost ratio of greater than 1 for everyone in a winning coalition. The greater the social surplus caused by the government action, the better the odds of obtaining that kind of result. It won't be what the ideal philosopher-economist-king would order, but that does not prove it won't be more efficient than the status quo.
Manzi's example of lobbying costs is fundamentally trivial. If global warming is a real problem, the social cost of lobbyist income will be miniscule in comparison to not doing anything about it. If global warming is not a real problem, then the social cost of lobbyist income is nothing compared to the cost of doing something about it.
1 year ago
You might say, well it's totally obvious the bill is net welfare-reducing, look at the list of side deals! But the list of deals is not decisive, in particular because many items on the list actually look pretty good!
1 year ago
1 year ago
In my view the tax is partly idealism and partly rent-seeking. I don't believe the rent-seeking coalition behind the bill is very strong (the net winners appear to be coastal states and renewable energy companies). So I think the main force here is idealism, or perhaps political posturing since the bill won't pass.
1 year ago
1 year ago
If public choice theory is the theory that no one is morally motivated, then not even the inventors of public choice theory believe in it.