Richard Murphy — The Washington Post is leading the right wing backlash to the Green New Deal, and have got almost everything wrong

I haven't linked to the WaPo in some time since it is seriously compromised. Now it is paywalled, too. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are also on this list.

The one aspect I think worth debate, which Noah Smith has previously brought up, is the issue of whether to craft a comprehensive bill that addresses all issues or to create a comprehensive proposal and craft many separate bills to address the complexity involved.

This is a political issue that involves strategy. Thus, it will depend on vote counting, both in the legislature and the next election.

I that the most democratic way to proceed is to craft separate bills to address separate issues. But this needs to be based on a comprehensive proposal recognizing that the design problem is systemic and a viable solution cannot be addressed piecemeal either, since there are overlapping issues.

For example, if it is possible to crafted a good bill on taxing carbon that can pass quickly, by all means do it. But don't conclude that therefore the job is done, as the WaPo argument seems to suggest. Taxing carbon alone won't do it, although taxing negative externality is need to arrive at true price based on true cost in order to preempt socialization of externality through market prices that don't reflect true cost. This is a form of preempting extraction of economic rent.

Tax Research UK
The Washington Post is leading the right wing backlash to the Green New Deal, and have got almost everything wrong

Richard Murphy