What legislation will pass

When designing legislation which has a chance of passing, there are a number of things which a legislator or non-profit needs to keep in mind. Based on my personal experience as a Carbon Washington employee, and volunteering for education and LGBT* rights, I have a few ideas, 3 regarding specific bills, and 2 regarding general political behavior:

  1. Any bill you propose should explicitly focus on one, and never more than two, issues. There will never be a single bill which will solve all of the world’s evils.
  2. Every piece of your bill should work with every other part of the bill towards solving the problem or two which you are trying to address. No section of the bill should explicitly undercut another section or the stated goal. Riders kill bills.
  3. Amendments will almost definitely whittle down your bill when it is being worked on by the legislature, the times they will strengthen your bill are few and far between. If you have any chance of passing legislation you need to start with a bill which is as strong and coherent as possible. This doesn’t mean a word limit, but the sections should clearly link to each other.
  4. Be decisive about your values, honest with everybody, and willing to take a stand for what is right.
  5. You only have so much political capital. Political capital is the amount of time you get talking to voters and legislators, which limits how much you can pass in a given year before fatigue sets in. Previous successes give you legitimacy, increase your political capital, as does having supporters on your mailing list and having many small donors to your campaign. 1000 donations of $3 is worth more than one donation of $3000 because those 1000 people have more time they can use to volunteer for you than one individual. Alienating supporters and losing reduces your political capital, and financial resources. Use it wisely.

The reason I say these three things is because of my experience over the last 7 years lobbying for different pieces of legislation on several topics. The legislation I have worked on which has passed followed all of these points. Several major high-profile pieces of legislation I have watched and a couple which I have worked on failed one of these three tests. These rules are based on my observations working on the climate fight here in Washington State.

The first rule is addressing a concern which a lot of environmental groups brought up with initiative 732. They argued and argued about where we should put the money, which no one could agree on. Some environmental groups outright opposed the initiative for this reason alone, even though their official communications were essentially slander. There are a lot of problems in this world which need to be corrected, and it is going to take a lot of time and energy. Choosing to oppose an environmental initiative because it isn’t focusing on education is ludicrous. They are two different issues, with connections to be sure, and are both very important, but refusing to work on one issue before another is complete guarantees nothing will ever get done until that behavior stops.

Governor Inslee’s carbon bill and Initiative 1631 are what I am addressing with point two. They were riddled with exemptions for most of the worst polluters in Washington State, and when I was talking to legislators about his bill I was hoping they hadn’t read it. The exemptions lost support and reduced the enthusiasm for both of them, because they were counter productive. Bills should NEVER include sections which undermine themselves, this guarantees failure in my experience. You should absolutely never write in sections which your core voter bloc will find reprehensible, because this will definitely lose you more votes than you will gain. On the other hand, if you focus on one issue, address it very well, then everybody who agrees with you on that one issue will be easy to convince to support it. If you make it complicated and try to focus on too many issues at once, then you will lose votes, getting nowhere. This can be summarized in two ways:

  1. Riders kill bills.
  2. If you can’t fit the summary of a bill on one side of a 3×5 note card, it is already dead.

Point three is based mostly off of the American health care debate, particularly Obamacare. Every Democratic President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has tried to expand health care to all Americans. President Johnson succeeded in creating both Medicare and Medicaid by starting from a point of strength. President Obama succeeded by putting together a bill which had a chance of passing, and with every section working together as one well oiled machine. All three systems are not as grand as they were originally proposed, but they were able to get through because they were congruent and strong from day one. A weaker bill in 2009 would have failed. A Medicare For All bill unfortunately also would have failed. To solve this, Obama wrote a bill based heavily off the German health care system and succeeded in passing it. This rule does not apply as much for intiatives, but it is a law I have observed while working on lobbying in the Washington State Legislature.

The fourth point applies to everyone who is talking to an elected official or working on a campaign. You must make a direct ask on what you want that person to do. It is not rude to say to a voter, “I would like you to fight global warming by voting yes on Initiative 732” or something like that for whatever you are working on. Politicians talk to a lot of people every day, and when talking to politicians you have to be very clear about what you want them to do. This ties in a lot with my second point, where you need to keep your bill simple if you have a chance of passing it. In Washington you only get 15 minutes per meeting with a legislator, and during that time you need to get as much information into about 5 minutes as you can. Having a bill which focuses on a single issue and isn’t self-defeating will ensure this time can be used effectively. However, if the bill you are working on has sections which counteract the declared point of the bill you are going to spend most of your time trying to explain that while the bill has sections which are counterproductive, the senator should still vote for it. This wastes your time, and you will probably fail.

Case in point: I was talking to Senator Tim Sheldon from Hoodsport, Washington last year about an environmental bill I supported. He was on the fence about it, but this was one which was clearly written and well-designed. He was obviously on the fence on it from the beginning, but since it was clearly an environmental bill I just had to mention that our district is the home of massive forestries and fisheries, and how global warming and the pine beetle invasion is already killing jobs in our district. He ended up voting for the bill out of committee later that week, and I believe my talking to him made a real difference that day. That bill didn’t include any riders or exemptions to it either, which made my job relatively easy.

Another example of strong legislation is the 100% clean electricity bill which was passed this year in Washington State. It isnt the most radical proposal by a long shot, but it does 3 things:

  1. It eliminates emissions from electricity production over 20 years.
  2. The entire bill is focused on that one goal, with no exemptions.
  3. It started off strong and ended strong.

The bill is now law.

A lot is going to happen next year, and a lot of planning is going to be done by environmentalists here in Washington State. Hopefully we will learn from our successes and failures of the last 5 years so we can pass meaningful legislation next year which will make a real difference.

Why a Pigouvian Tax Cannot Play Favorites

This week has been amazing, with three major pieces of legislation which will reduce emissions in Washington State over the (very) long term passing and being signed by Governor Inslee this week. This is following 5 years of work which Carbon Washington and Audubon Washington have been doing to try to get policies which achieve three goals, 1. Reduce global warming, 2. Fight income inequality, and 3. Do not give special treatment to the largest polluters in our state.

This bill fulfills all three. It has issues, mostly that it has a very long timeline and doesn’t do enough to incentivize reductions in emissions before 2030, but this is a major step towards a carbon tax which fulfills those three goals those of us at Carbon Washington, Citizens Climate Lobby, and Audubon are working towards.

The third goal has been the sticking point over the last 5 years. Both Governor Inslee’s bill in 2017 and the initiative from the Alliance in 2018 (which conveniently had no details until after the Governor’s bill was dead) would have given millions of tax payer dollars to coal, oil refineries, and natural gas corporations through tax exemptions every single year. These would have mitigated much of the reduction in global warming these politically expensive pigs in lipstick would have created. If the exemptions had not been in the bills they would have made a bigger difference, and been on the revenue side almost indistinguishable from 732, but by exempting the worst polluters in Washington in both cases, the reductions of emissions would have been relatively minimal. The Yes on 1631 campaign didn’t provide estimates on global warming reductions, but the No campaign did, and while it would have made some impact, completely exempting over 20 major polluting industries would have significantly reduced its impact. They tried to give public money to the biggest polluters in the nation, sacrificing the health of our children’s generation as our schools are starved for funds in exchange for immediate political favors.

This is why they fail.

This is also why I will not vote for Governor Inslee in the Presidential race.

Another example of how exemptions to Pigouvian taxes play out has to do with the proposed toll in downtown Manhattan New York will implement at some time in the near future. As they explained in this episode:

RAFIEYAN: There are still plenty of details that need to get ironed out, not least of which is just how much is this toll going to cost? New York Governor Andrew Cuomo suggested a flat fee per car per day of about 11 or 12 bucks and $25 for trucks. But there will be some exemptions. The state has already approved breaks for emergency vehicles, for people with disabilities. And other groups are asking for exemptions as well – delivery truck drivers, livery cab drivers, motorcyclists, police officers.

VANEK SMITH: And that could really affect how much money the congestion pricing plan brings in. And at least in Mohammad’s view, if all these guys get exemptions, it’s not going to help traffic at all or raise much money.

This is my beef with I-1631 and Governor Inslee’s proposal. As soon as you give one special interest group an exemption to a policy, whether it be to a road toll or to a carbon tax then everybody in the world and their second cousin feel like they are also entitled to special treatment. When it comes to problems like global warming and traffic, we are all guilty. I walk to work (partially because I don’t have a car right now, but I did even when I did have a car) to reduce my impact, but I do not deserve special treatment for my good behavior when I pollute. Just like with a road toll, as soon as the most common offenders start to get exemptions you have defeated the reason of using a Pigouvian tax and not a general income tax, making no progress.

If we are not going to use a carbon tax to fight the biggest problem facing humanity today, instead of handing out millions of tax payer dollars to the dirtiest companies in the world, what are we doing?

We are now coming to a monumental point in Washington State history where environmental groups have the political capital and support of the average person to make monumental historic changes which will ripple across the country and the world, making our world livable for all for centuries to come. It is up to us to take this political capital and convert it to real substantial policy which will end the biggest challenge facing humanity today. This means that whatever we propose next year MUST treat all pollution equally, no matter who is destroying our shared air. We have already tried the policies which court the Petroleum Manufacturers Association, and their attempts got us no where. The only proposals which have made it through the legislature give no handouts to any large polluters. This is not a coincidence, this is how politics works. Compromising with the devil always fails.

We MUST propose a carbon tax in the legislature in January which gives no exemptions to any major polluter in our state. This is the only way forward which I can see. While there are certainly many policies which we can do alongside a carbon tax, at the end of the day a well designed carbon tax MUST be part of the package if we are to have any hope at curbing global warming. It is simply the most effective policy to fight global warming ever devised according to many economic journals which compare the efficacy of different policies.

Are you with us or against us?

The Mueller Probe is not over

Greek dramas are written in 3 acts. The first act sets the stage and gives a taste of what is to come. That was Mueller spending the last two years gathering evidence. The second act is a ramp up to the climax, which is many different pardon-proof trials happening all over this country in multiple states, and is going to end with a pardon proof service of process to Donald Trump AND Mike Pence from some state court. Probably New York. The third act is the climax and resolution, when Trump AND Pence will both be found guilty, they will impeached or defeated in the general election of 2020 and their allies are decimated in the general election in 20 months.

The Mueller probe is NOT over. It’s only beginning…

(This is not an April Fools joke)

Trump’s summary of the Mueller Report is bullshit

I am supposed to believe someone who was handpicked by a man who was just under investigation for two years that there was indeed interference in our election by a foreign enemy power (Russia), but that after repeated attempts to reach out to the Trump campaign, the Trump campaign said no and the Russians continued to interfere.

That’s a load of horse crap. No one works that way in reality.

Also, if it is true that the Russians interfering in our election was not colluding with the Trump campaign, I am sure it is simply a coincidence that multiple high ranking members of the campaign are sitting in federal prison right now.

Again, this briefing is a load of bullshit, cherry picked and written by someone who was handpicked to keep an occupying power in the White House.

If Trump really was innocent and the Republican party really did nothing wrong why hide it? Why send multiple high ranking officials of the Republican Party to Federal Prison as part of this investigation if they really didn’t collude?

We need to see the full Mueller report. That is the only way my suspicions that America is currently occupied territory will be relieved. It just doesn’t add up.

Again, the Trump Administration’s summary of an investigation they were just under is a steaming pile of bullshit and we are being robbed.

Read the crap here:
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/24/706351394/read-the-justice-departments-summary-of-the-mueller-report?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190324

Status of the 2020 election as of February 2019

This is proving to be one of the most crowded presidential primaries in a very long time. Only paying attention to governors and Senators (because those are the ones with an actual possibility of winning) we have:

  • Cory Booker
  • Kirsten Gillibrand
  • Kamala Harris
  • Amy Klobuchar
  • Bernie Sanders
  • Elizabeth Warren

6% of  the Senate, and 12.8% of Democratic caucusing candidates are in the race already. Let’s look at historical perspective of likely winners in previous elections:

  • 2020: 6 candidates with a possibility (6 senators)
  • 2016: 5 candidates with a possibility
  • 2008: 7 candidates with a possibility (6 senators, 1 governor)
  • 2004: 5 candidates (4 senators, 1 governor)
  • 2000: 2 candidates (2 senators)
  • 1992: 6 candidates (4 senators, 2 governors)
  • 1988: 6 candidates (4 senators, 2 governors)
  • 1984: 7 candidates (5 senators, 1 governor, 1 vice president)
  • 1980: 4 candidates (1 senator, 2 governor, 1 president)
  • 1976: 10 candidates (6 senators, 4 governors)

The 1972 primary only included 31 states, making it a fundamentally different system from what we have today.

In terms of the timing, this is about the same time that candidates announced in 2008, the last comparable year for the Democratic Party,so this is a pretty normal round.

Now for candidate policies:
Health care:

Debt Free College:

Wall Street Bailouts:

Rent Control

  • Oppose, support other solutions
    •  Elizabeth Warren
  • Support
    • Kamala Harris
    • Bernie Sanders
    • Kirsten Gillibrand

Fight Global Warming

Cut American emission in half

Overview: EIA
Overview of sources: EIA

Where we need to do the most work:

50% of Northeast Ohio’s emissions come from electricity production. Geothermal plants could reduce this significantly.
gcbl

Wyoming has the most emissions per capita. 57% of their energy is for housing. Geothermal heating could significantly reduce emissions in Wyoming. 22% of their energy is used for transportation. 91% of electricity in Wyoming is from coal. Wyoming needs immediate investment in geothermal power plants, geothermal heating, and solar power.
Institute for Energy ResearchList of US states by carbon dioxide emissions
 
The best way to reduce North Dakota’s carbon footprint is by reducing America’s demand for oil. North Dakota has the second largest footprint on a per capita basis. Coal is the largest source of electricity. 28.7 MMT from coal, 16.1 MMT from industry.

West Virginia is the 4th worst state per capita. West Virginia needs to move its workers from coal to renewable power as soon as possible. Almost 100% of their electricity is from coal. 68.7 MMT from electricity, 10 MMT from Industry.

Alaska is the 5th worst state per capita. Natural gas is the number one source of carbon emissions. (EIA) Heavy subsidies for geothermal heating will significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Natural gas and oil account for 100% of Alaska’s net carbon emissions. Moving off of oil for transportation and geothermal heating for houses will be enough. Alaska can easily do this by a carbon tax and using that money for no-interest loans for geothermal heating and power, and other renewable energy sources. This will cut over 20 MMT Co2 annually. GHG Inventory Report 2015 for Alaska
 
Louisiana is the 6th worst state per capita (44.5 metric tons) or 207 million metric tons in total. Most of their electricity is from natural gas. Industry produces over half their carbon emissions (40 million metric tons), from oil and natural gas production. Louisiana needs an immediate increase in solar power statewide to reduce their carbon footprint.

Texas is the number one state for carbon emissions, at 709 million metric tons or 26 metric tons per capita. Natural gas is it number one source of fuel and the number one source for electricity. We can cut this by implementing more efficient air to with 35% of the total or 226 MMT CO2. Texas needs immediate large scale investment in solar and geothermal.

Florida is the 6th worst state in total carbon emissions. 50% of their emissions are from electricity production. Natural gas is the leader in carbon emissions, followed by coal. Eliminating these would cut 104 MMT of CO2

Easiest projects to complete:

  1. Make Alaska Carbon Neutral. 20 MMT
  2. Eliminate 100% of Washington State’s electricity emissions. They are from the Trans-Alta Plant in Centralia. 11.7 MMT

Long-scale urgent projects

  1. Boost renewable electricity production in Texas to replace current fossil fuel technologies. 226
  2. Boost renewable electricity production in Louisiana and reduce production of oil and natural gas. 40 from electricity, 105 from industry.
  3. End coal production in West Virginia. 70
  4. End coal power plants in North Dakota. 28.7
  5. End coal power plants in Pennsylvania. 105.9
  6. End coal power plants in Ohio. 101.9
  7. End coal and natural gas in Florida. 104 MMT
  8. End coal power plants in Indiana. 98 MMT
  9. Implement a nationwide electric car network and replace all internal combustion engines with renewable energy. Ban the sale of fossil fuels by 2030. 1740 MMT from Transportation can be reduced this way. I recommend transitioning to this using a carbon tax as soon as possible.

We can do all of this in the next 15 years.
This will reduce 2619.5 MMT of Carbon dioxide or over 50% of America’s total carbon emissions.
We need to do this

Help reduce emissions in other countries.

There are a few policies the United States can do to pressure other countries to reduce global warming, such as:

  1. Ban the export of all coal and oil products from the United States.
  2. Export renewable energy technologies with no tariffs.
  3. Significantly invest in renewable energy research

City beautiful

I really enjoy looking at how good cities are designed as opposed to bad cities, and have found a list of several policies which I believe would be good to improve the livability of cities around the world. These policies should be applicable to cities of all sizes in most situations.

Free Transit which serves all major commutes in a metropolitan area

When it comes to building a functional transit system, a few key components come to mind. First thing of all, the transit must be frequent for convenience so people can not just get to their destination but also get back home. It must be fast, and this means rail is the way to do it for longer or high density commuters. The top priority is of course to make sure you have a network going out from downtown, and also to ensure high density routes around the city are covered as well.

The majority of trips in the metropolitan area should be easily covered by mass transit in about the same amount of time it will take to drive.

Munich, Germany has the best transit system I have ever used in my life:

http://www.angelfire.com/ri/EuroDelivery/metro.html

This system hits all of the best parts I have learned abuot how to design a transit system. I would personally remove the zoning laws which increase fares outside of the white area, but the white area covers the vast majority of the city. On top of this, all of the buses are free as well.

If you want a highly functioning high quality transit system, be like Munich.

The reason to have free transit is because people think on the margin, which is that we act on the small bit of gain for the next bit of effort. If the amount of gain is larger than the effort expended, people will probably make the change. People have trade off ratios between time and money (obviously) and in order to encourage people to do the right thing we need the better option for the environment and society be the cheaper and faster option. We make it faster not by slowing down other methods (for this reduces societal welfare) but by making the sustainable option (aka rail) faster and cheaper. The easiest way to do this is by having free and fast transit. Wilkommen aus München.

Congestion pricing on freeways

Once you have fixed your transit system, which needs to happen first to give people an alternative to driving, you need to make driving more expensive in the areas with chronic congestion. The first step is to toll all exit ramps within 3 km of downtown at a rate which changes with congestion. This will give further encouragement for people to get out of their

Taller buildings to increase density and reduce pricing

Improving transit to areas will have a double impact, places closer to downtown will be cheaper ceteris paribus, and places further from downtown will be more expensive. This should balance out in the long run, but the way to ensure prices don’t spiral out of control is to increase density, particularly near rail stations. This benefits society in two ways, more supply means lower prices, ceteris paribus, and having high density near a train station means these people can walk to the station which increases the amount people will commute via train vs drive their own cars.

More policies to reduce environmental impact

The first three policies further two goals, reduce pollution and reduce wasted time. Both of these are expensive and cost a large city billions of dollars of productivity every year. With more people taking transit and people living in denser areas, the environmental impact of your city will be reduced, but we can still go further.

The first policy is the easiest to implement and the one with the biggest impact, is an escalating exemption free carbon tax which would be implemented in all states around your metropolitan area. This makes burning gasoline more expensive, encouraging people to either use transit or get an electric car. It should be placed at least at the societal cost of burning gasoline. This is proven to work around the world.

The second policy is a lot harder to implement but would make a big difference. We should make it so that people don’t have to have long commutes to work by zoning in a mixed zoning method. Have commercial and office buildings spread throughout the city along with housing fairly evenly. Industrial generally needs to be set apart for pollution and noise reasons (as any Cities Skylines player knows) which will mean you will have commuters to those locations, but this can be remedied  by ensuring there is very good transit to the closest residential areas to the industrial area for those workers to be able to use. You keep residential prices low by ensuring your transit system is consistent across the metropolitan area.

Policies which should be taken for granted

Obviously water, sewage, trash, electricity, education, and internet should be provided by the city because they are all natural monopolies. Education should be free, and all of these other natural monopolies should be sold to consumers at cost. It shouldn’t be free because such a policy invites waste, but it shouldn’t be expensive either. Having this done by local government will ensure that people are more likely to get the quality they need, and that they won’t spend more money on an inferior service. When I say education I include all education up through a bachelor’s degree at a minimum.

I am deeply offended I had to put all of these on the list. Goddamn Rick Snyder.

Progressive Taxation

Finally, all of these policies are well and good, we need to ensure they are being paid for in a way which is fair and equitable to all. This means on top of our carbon tax we need to have a progressive tax code, which means a progressive income tax. This I would do by taxing all income for a single individual above $100,000 at a progressive rate, and having a negative income tax for a single individual who makes less than $100,000. This is on my tax code blog post, which I refer back to all the time because it is one of the most important pieces of writing I have ever done and I can’t improve on it.

This is, in my experience, what a beautiful and functional city looks like.

Venezuela February 2019

There is a lot of talk about Venezuela currently with people making many erroneous claims. This is meant to be a relatively in depth study of Venezuela’s economy, political structure, and history.

History

Pre-History

Venezuela has been inhabited by people for thousands of years.

Colonialization

Venezuela was conquered by the Spaniards in the 16th century, like most of the Americas.

Independence and Gran Colombia (1812-1827)

Venezuela was part of the Bolivarian Republic.

Early Independent Venezuela (1827-1948)

Venezuela had a democracy for most of its early history.

Military Dictatorship (1948-1958)

Venezuela was ruled by a military dictatorship for 10 years.

Republic of Venezuela (1953-1999)

The Republic of Venezuela saw a regular transition between the Democratic Action and Copei Parties. Economically it was a petrostate, but it maintained democratic traditions during these 46 years. The last President was Rafael Caldera who saw steady economic growth and invested in education and infrastructure during his Presidency. He opened the oil industry to foreign companies, and this helped economic growth.

Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro (1999-2019)

Hugo Chavez won the Presidency in December 1998. during his presidency the economy boomed during his time in office, mostly as the result of soaring oil prices. His response to this good fortune was to nationalize multiple industries, financed by the rents on exporting oil during the high oil prices of the 2000s.
Due to this circumstantial good fortune of being the leader of a country sitting on massive oil reserves in an era where oil prices only went up with an exception of the Great Recession, he was able to maintain popularity as people had everything they needed. Chavez died on 5 March 2013, leaving Maduro as President. The first year was smooth for Maduro, as the price of oil continued to hover around 100 USD per barrel. This good fortune ended in June 2014, by January 2016 the price hit a trough of $35 per barrel. This was to no fault of Maduro by himself. However, the consequences of a highly centralized economy, with being the third lowest score in the Ease of Doing Business in the world, has prevented their economy from being flexible to a rapidly changing situation. the oil rents which funded the services provided by the Venezuelan government gone, Maduro was faced with a choice, he could either liberalize the economy and allow the invisible hand to allocate resources, or he could clamp down on an economy with massive shortages and literal famine as a result of his policies. this has been documented in a 400 page report by the Organization of American States which is viewable here, and worth reading. In short, they have called on Nicolas Maduro to be charged by the ICC for crimes against humanity which the document outlines, which is highly unusual.

I do not care if a dictator calls himself socialist or fascist. I just care that Nicolas Maduro has violated the human rights of his people, which is always inexcusable. Venezuela has the largest refugee crisis from a non-war zone since the partition of India. It is the 6th or 7th largest refugee crisis in recorded history. The lack of food and economic devastation over the last couple of years has devastated the Venezuelan economy.

Economics

Venezuela sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world. The government has used the rents from exporting oil to finance projects, particularly under the Chavez regime.

Venezuela has seen significant economic collapse over the last few years, with two years in a row with a -14% GDP growth rate, and a poverty rate which has skyrocketed from 19.7% in 2015 to 87% in 2017. Inflation has soared to over 2 million percent this year. A significant reduction in GDP and a significant increase in prices is massive stagflation, a significant shrinking of supply over a short period of time. With government corporations no longer getting the oil rents they were funded with, this should surprise no one.

They say to never put all your eggs in one basket, and Venezuela gives an incredible example of why this is true, for that is exactly what Chavez did.

References

Green New Deal

Representative Ocasio-Cortez presented her green new deal plan this week, and it s a non binding resolution. This is useful to give a signal which representatives are going for support a more es expansive policy, but it still leaves out details on how to do it.
She is attempting to address both income inequality and global warming in one legislation, which is exactly what Initiative 732 did. She doesn’t have details unfortunately.
Here is how I would do address both climate change and inequality in one blow:
  1. A carbon tax with no exemptions which starts at $25 per ton and increases at 3.5% + inflation annually with no cap or expiration date.
  2. Implement high speed rail on the 100 most high demand routes, from the most to least important.
  3. No income tax below $100,000 annual income for a single person.
  4. Allow Americans to privatize their Social Security taxes in IRA accounts. Eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes. This will effectively fight income inequality.
  5. A $5000 annual Universal Basic Income. Minors will have half their Universal Basic Income in a trust for when they are 18, and half goes to their parents. that money they receive when they are 18 will be enough to cover room and board in college, and the money is theirs, so their parents will have no power over them. The $5000 in the beginning of the year will help people get out of debt or invest in their future. Once out of debt, it is enough to fully fund someone’s retirement account for retirement.
  6. Three options for health care, all options allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.
    1. A public option and increase Medicaid eligibility to $60,000 per person annual income for a single individual.
    2. Everyone is eligible for Medicaid.
  7. Free college tuition at public universities.
  8. Tax capital gains as regular income.
  9. Either my full tax plan, or have a new bracket at 50% for all income above $1 million per year.

Why climate policy is stalled in Olympia

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple years about carbon taxation due to the work that I did along with friends of mine at Carbon Washington for Initiative 732, the first and most progressive carbon tax proposal in American history. We based it off of the highly successful carbon tax which British Columbia passed in 2008, and refunded the money back to tax payers because we have the most regressive tax code in the United States. The number of exemptions in our bill were limited.

Then there was the Governor’s bill in the legislature in 2017. I lobbied for it, even though it had several big problems. The carbon tax amount was significantly smaller than 732, it increased linearly, not exponentially, and gave many exemptions to big oil and coal which 732 didn’t. I lobbied for it regardless of these serious flaws because it was better than nothing and would have funded our schools which are significantly, which desperately needs to happen.

The third proposal so far was I-1631 which was extremely similar to Inslee’s bill. It was a modest tax, with a 1 year delay before implementation, would have increased linearly, had a long list of exemptions for oil companies, and even worse was fairly vague about where the money would be spent compared to the other two bills, leaving over a billion dollars for the governor to make the final decision on, through a board the governor would have appointed.

732 (2011-2016)

All three have failed. When it comes to the major players in the state, there are four which are relevant.

The first is Carbon Washington. We started the discussion in the first place, and designed everything to benefit working class families, who are disproportionately people of color. The Audubon Society joined us in fighting for the initiative, along with many local Democratic Parties, multiple environmental groups, and a wide swath of scientists and business leaders.

Despite all of this, the number one complaint I heard the most often was not having to do with the context of our bill itself but was regarding a group known as the Alliance. They were formed in opposition to us, claiming that we needed to take people of color into account, despite how we won that demographic come election day, and they would benefit more than anyone else from the working families tax credit and sales tax reduction, among several other unrealistic criticisms. They were claiming to be building a new, better initiative which would take people of color into account and would release the initiative “soon”. I will get back to that bucket of corruption.

The other main players were the governor, who opposed us probably to pursue his own political agenda and propose a bill of his own come election day, and the Democratic Party outright opposed us.

The Alliance, Governor Inslee, and the Democratic Party allied themselves with big coal in 2016. There is no other honest way to put it.

Our failure at the ballot box, aided by Governor Inslee, the Alliance, and the Democratic Party (all of whom should have helped us) has made it significantly harder to get anything done since then because we have to fight the argument that the people already voted no once, and why try again? They hurt themselves in the process, as I will outline further down.

The arguments of the Alliance are preserved at Ballotpedia.

Sidenote: All of the claims from OneAmerica and the Democratic Party that the tax is not in fact “revenue neutral” is based off the estimates published by the Office of Financial Management. They estimated a shortfall of $797 million over a 6 year time period, which would be an average of $132 million per year. However, they didn’t include their standard deviation in the document they sent to every voter in the state, and their standard deviation was larger than their mean, meaning that it was as close to revenue neutral as anyone could predict with the best models (which they were using). Printing a future projection without a standard deviation is unprofessional, and misled every voter. For reference, the 2018 proposed budget had a total amount spend of $44,669 million for one year of spending. If, let’s say, the OFM was correct and there would have been a shortfall (more on that in the next paragraph) the total impact would have been 0.3% of the budget. About 1/3 of the total amount spent on Natural Resources & Recreation, the smallest section of the budget. To claim (as they did) that it would create austerity is ludicrous, and if there was a slight shortfall, wouldn’t have made the sky fall.

The opposition to 732 ran with this misprint the OFM printed, falsely claiming that 732 would threaten our schools, which was completely false.

The Legislature (2017)

After the failure of 732, the battle moved to the legislature. This bill, as I describe above was significantly weaker. It gave large exemptions to big oil, and probably would not have reduced emissions at all. The only reason to lobby for it, in retrospect, is that we might have been able to do more in the following election year and the money would have funded our schools. It wasn’t a great bill.

Unfortunately, even with a Democratic Majority this bill which started with an injured leg from its big oil exemptions failed in the legislature, losing Governor Inslee major political brownie points, and making it harder to pass future bills.

The Alliance finally decided to announce their proposal after Governor Inslee fell flat on his face, once they were essentially the only player left in town.

Initiative 1631 (2018)

The Alliance finally released their initiative, and it had many of the same flaws of Governor Inslee’s proposal. Particularly the major exemptions to big oil which I detest. It was better than the legislation in that it was a larger tax (though still significantly smaller than 732) but it wasn’t as clear as the bill on how the money would be spent.

Both of those features made this bill significantly harder to defend for me. I am not surprised it failed because of those major problems with the bill.

The truth is, it was poorly written, gave exemptions to the wrong groups, and didn’t outline clearly how the money would be spent. This made it really hard to  defend because if someone brought any of them up, the only response I could honestly say (because I try very hard to be honest) that yes, it gave exemptions to the wrong groups and you probably would not see any benefit to this legislation.

On top of this, I don’t even know if it would have increased carbon emissions at all given its complexity.

I voted for it, but I didn’t lobby for it because I knew it would probably fail.

Remember the arguments from the fight against 732? How we would have bankrupted the state (we wouldn’t have) and how we didn’t listen to minorities (we did, there is a lot of history on this issue on how they walked out)? Well, if by bankrupt the state they meant  that the investments would NOT go to our schools (one of their arguments) and would NEVER be seen by working class families, instead being distributed by an unelected board with no oversight from the legislature, with fairly vague goals, which probably would not have helped working class people or global warming. The only winners from 1631 would have been oil companies with their massive exemptions.

It would not have funded our schools, rebuilt our infrastructure,

The Future

I still hold out naive hope that Washington might still be able to pass significant climate legislation. Many strong climate leaders were elected last week, and we might be able to get something done now.

Nothing is going to happen at the ballot box anymore. The Alliance basically made sure of that in 2016, and I do not see a future for that organization with their track record at this point.

Getting something through the legislature of any scale is going to be extremely difficult. Telling legislators to vote for something similar to two failed initiatives is not a good place to stand, even if people vote against similar legislation once it makes it very difficult to get something through. I don’t want carbon taxes to be DOA, but the reality is they probably will be. I hope I am wrong on this.

The only groups which truly deserve credit in my opinion for making any progress at this point are Carbon Washington, Audubon and Citizens Climate Lobby.