Will Cap And Trade Raise The Income Tax By 50 Percent?

Martin Feldstein got kicked around the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago for an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing against cap-and-trade legislation. (See, eg, David Roberts, Matt Yglesias, Mark Thoma, Paul Krugman, Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell.) Upping the ante, I see Feldstein's now gone and published an even longer version of the exact same argument in the current issue of the Weekly Standard.

The portion of Feldstein's argument that had to do with international relations -- basically, that the US shouldn't act on climate change without extracting similar agreements from China and India -- got picked over pretty well last time around. But the rest of Felstein's argument -- basically, that cap and trade would impose a huge cost on the average American family -- is worth noting:

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/will-cap-and-trade-raise-the-income-tax-by-50-percent/19473/