Mitt Romney Supports A Carbon Tax / Dividend

Earlier this month, Mitt Romney posted the following message on Twitter:

Thought-provoking plan from highly respected conservatives to both strengthen the economy & confront climate risks: https://t.co/U6kmrQTPth

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 8, 2017

What is the Climate Leadership Council? It's a new advocacy group that includes prominent Republicans such as former Secretary of State/Treasury James Baker, former Secretary of Treasury Henry (Hank) Paulson, and former Secretary of State/Treasury/Labor George Shultz. It also includes Harvard professor Gregory Mankiw, who served as Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush [1].

So what is the CLC pushing for? Let's take a look at their position document: The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends. It's a short document that outlines "Four Pillars" of policy. First they lay out the problem (emphasis added):

Mounting evidence of climate change is growing too strong to ignore. While the extent to which climate change is due to man-made causes can be questioned, the risks associated with future warming are too big and should be hedged. At least we need an insurance policy. For too long, many Republicans have looked the other way, forfeiting the policy initiative to those who favor growth-inhibiting command-and-control regulations, and fostering a needless climate divide between the GOP and the scientific, business, military, religious, civic and international mainstream.

On to the pillars of their proposed policy, which I list below with my one-sentence summary of each:

1. A Gradually Increasing Carbon Tax - Tax fossil fuels when they enter the economy, and increase the tax with time.

2. Carbon Dividends for All Americans - Distribute the entire tax revenue back equally to all American citizens.

3. Border Carbon Adjustments - Treat exports/imports in a way that is consistent with the policy.

4. Significant Regulatory Rollback - Remove regulations that are made obsolete by the above policy.

The idea, of course, is that making fossil fuels more expensive will make alternatives more attractive. Meanwhile, some of that expense will be returned to you. Use less fossil fuel and you can come out ahead (i.e. dividend > extra fuel expense). Aside from a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, the document then goes on to argue that the tax/dividend policy would have additional benefits including helping low-income families and spurring the economy.

Clearly, the CLC and Mitt Romney are trying to signal to Republicans that it is OK to be concerned about climate change, it is OK to want government to do something about it, and that it is OK to want a carbon tax [2]. Moreover, they argue that their proposal is the BEST policy for addressing the problem. The CLC documents take occasional swipes at Obama and Democrats (as if it never occurred to them to implement a carbon tax), but that's OK. We all know that Republican politicians think sticking it to Democrats is more important than implementing good policy [3]. If making them feel superior is what it takes, so be it. A little hypocrisy in the service of the greater good is tolerable.

Unfortunately, as The Atlantic notes, the biggest obstacle to implementing this conservative policy is Republicans.

The problem in fighting climate change has never been a natural Democratic love for onerous regulatory regimes. It has been Republicans who have long refused to even entertain the idea that climate change is dangerous or human-caused...

Last year, the House G.O.P. unanimously supported a resolution that declared a carbon tax “would be detrimental to American families and businesses, and is not in the best interest of the United States.”

Indeed. In fact, if you click Romney's tweet above and go to the original, you'll see that many of the replies are a testament to that point.

Is this the best policy for addressing the issue? I don't know; I'm not going to pretend that I'm a policy expert, but it seems like as good an option as any. Do I think it has a snowball's chance in hell of being passed? Not as long as Mitch McConnell is the Majority Leader of the Senate, given his representation of the coal industry. However, my longer-term view is more optimistic [4]. Is this something that Trump could get on board with? Who the heck knows?

But none of that matters at the moment. What is important is that Republicans (including voters) now have permission to support a carbon tax without feeling like they have taken on the identity of a liberal.

Mitt Romney says so!


Notes:
1. In other words, these are not a bunch of hippie liberal communists. Baker and Shultz, for example, served in, and for most of, the Reagan administration.

2. Romney's signal does have a bit of plausible deniability: 'Hey, I only said it was interesting.'

3. Oh, come on. You know it's true. See the presidency of Barack Obama.

4. McConnell won't hold that position forever. Not to be morbid, but if electoral politics doesn't take it away from him, death eventually will. In the meantime, the issue will only become more pressing and holdouts will become more isolated.

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BYU and the Reconstruction of the Legend of the First Vision

Last year Richard Bushman generated a bit of a stir when he said,

I think that for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that’s what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change.

He later clarified his meaning (here and here) to make clear that he simply meant that we need to bring new information into the way we tell the story of the Restoration, which the Church has begun to do (e.g. Gospel Topics essays, The Joseph Smith Papers, etc.)

This year's Gospel Doctrine curriculum focuses on the Doctrine and Covenants, and although the First Vision isn't actually in the D&C, it is the focus of Lesson #3. My observation is that we still have a lot of work to do to reconstruct the story of the First Vision. The story has been told from the exclusive vantage point of Joseph Smith's 1838 telling with added layers of popular interpretation for so long that historical inaccuracies are practically baked in. The problem is that the inaccuracies are almost as beloved as the vision itself. During the recent lesson in my own ward, I looked for opportunities to insert gentle historical correction. However, the traditional story (and associated interpretations) was presented (and reflected by the class) so strongly that I chickened out for fear of doing more harm than good.

With that as background, I want to draw attention to a publication by the BYU Religious Studies Center that I think represents a solid step in the right direction. In 2012 BYU's RSC published a book titled, Exploring the First Vision, which is now available online (and also at Deseret Book) [1]. Much of the book provides defense against various adversarial arguments. However, for the purposes of this post, I believe the most significant chapter is James Allen's essay, "Emergence of a Fundamental: The Expanding Role of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Religious Thought." (Actually, this essay was originally published in 1980. It's a shame that it has had so little influence.)

In his essay, Allen discusses some of the history surrounding the USE of the First Vision and traces how it changed from a relatively minor story in Church history to a central pillar of the Restoration. In the process, the First Vision went from story to legend, and he dispels some of the historical inaccuracies that have become attached to it. Forgive me for quoting two long paragraphs, but I think they are important (emphasis mine).

As they began to use Joseph Smith’s first religious experience for various instructional purposes, Mormon teachers and writers were also creating certain secondary but highly significant historical perceptions in the minds of the Latter-day Saints. There was no intent to distort or mislead, but what happened was only one example of a very natural intellectual process that helps explain the emergence of at least some basic community perceptions. It seems to be a truism that whenever great events take place, second- and third-generation expounders tend to build a kind of mythology around them by presuming corollary historical interpretations that often have little basis in fact. In this case, the deepening awareness of the vision, along with a growing community sensitivity for how essential it was to Mormon faith and doctrine, created an atmosphere in which other historical inferences could easily be drawn. These included the ideas that (1) over the centuries, considerable “rubbish concerning religion” had accumulated that only revelation could correct; (2) most, if not all, Christians believed in the traditional Trinitarian concept of God; (3) the Christian world denied the concept of continuing revelation; (4) Joseph Smith told the story of his vision widely; and (5) he continued to be persecuted or publicly ridiculed for it, even to the time of his death. Such historical interpretation, much of it misleading, soon dominated popular Mormon thought. The challenge for individual believers, including Mormon historians, would be to separate the essential truths of the vision experience from corollaries that may not be so essential to the faith.

Once the vision assumed its predominant place in Mormon writing and preaching, it became much more than Joseph Smith’s personal experience—it became a shared community experience. Every Mormon and every prospective convert was urged to pray for his or her own testimony of its reality—in effect, to seek a personal theophany by becoming one with Joseph in the grove. Latter-day Saints did not forget the importance of the angel Moroni, but gradually the First Vision took precedence over the visit of the angel as the event that ushered in the Restoration of the gospel. It was only a short step from there to the expanded use of the vision as a teaching device whenever the doctrine of God or the principle of revelation played any part in the discussion. As the years passed, the list of lessons, truths, principles, and historical interpretations taught or illustrated by the vision grew longer. Each writer or preacher saw it as fundamental, but each also had his or her own private insight into what it could illustrate or portray.

This is admirably honest, sensitive, and straightforward. The next time I need to make a corrective point, I will start my sentence with, "I read a fascinating book on the First Vision that was published by BYU's religion department a few years ago. I learned..."

Now I just need a way to make the point that the First Vision wasn't as strange or unique as we think it was.

Notes:
1. In other words, the book is available from the most orthodox publishers there are, aside from the correlation department itself.

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