Taxing Breath?

Taxing Us for Breathing

Robert Tracinski
Real Clear Politics
Monday, March 12, 2007

Last week, the New York Times published an extraordinary editorial complaining that "Right now, everyone is using the atmosphere like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." The Times editors suggested that the government "start charging for the privilege" by imposing a "carbon tax."

We all knew it would eventually come to this: the New York Times thinks the government should tax us for breathing.

Of course, the editorial was supposed to be aimed at big corporations who build coal-fired power plants--but why should the logic stop there? Right now, eight million people are walking around on the streets of New York City heedlessly inhaling precious oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, treating the skies over their fair city "like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." Shouldn't they be forced to pay for the "privilege," too?

And the connection is a logical one, because the generation of power by industrial-scale power plants is as much a vital activity as breathing.

Breathing Tax

So, the good ol' state of New York wants to tax people for emitting carbon dioxide into the air when we breathe now... Wow. Well, what they don't tell people is that carbon dioxide feeds plants and trees and trees and plants in turn produce oxygen.

You see, while it is true that humans do pollute the environment, carbon dioxide is not necessarily the worst thing that is thrown into the atmosphere by man. If we want to preserve the environment, why don't they crack down on chemical plants? The toxic fumes that emerge from chemical plants are beyond number.

What is the government going to require us to do next? Pass emissions tests?

Carbon tax?Seems quite extreme!
That reminds me,does New York have many trees & plants around?If yes then greed is really on the rise,not to mention making people exhausted physically.

Jeez, I'd hate run run out of money if they ever impose this tax!

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Originally posted by tormentor
Carbon tax?Seems quite extreme!

That reminds me,does New York have many trees & plants around?If yes then greed is really on the rise,not to mention making people exhausted physically.

Tormentor, what a lot of people don't realize is that there are more trees now than there were 100 years ago. The earth knows how to take care of itself. I used to be a big believer in the man made global warming theory, but the more I research it and hear about it, the more I am starting to think that it is more cyclical than anything else. Of course, that is not to say that man is not a contributor, but I don't think man is necessarily the main cause and certainly not the only cause.

For them to make a tax on the carbon dioxide we naturally create when we breathe seems preposterous to me.

[edit on 15-3-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Was this article actual written seriously?
If it was it is very ridiculous.

Somehow this sounds like a joke.
They can't really be serious...tax on breathing?
Are they going to tax animals, too?

Originally posted by mnmcandiez
Was this article actual written seriously?
If it was it is very ridiculous.

With some of the decisions being made by our government,I wouldn't doubt the seriousness of it at all.