Political Footballs v. Actual Legislation

TW: The sentiment expressed below jives with my own. I do not regard cap and trade as an ideal approach to climate change or more specifically energy and tax policy. A carbon tax would better. Many conservative pundits and economists agree with me. BUT where are the Republicans proposing a carbon tax. Answer there are none. Therefore one finds the conservatives screeching about cap and trade but again providing no actual alternative. If Republicans were front and center with a carbon tax, you would find me fully supporting them, but they are not because part of their party denies climate change and most of their party is paralyzed when it comes to anything remotely associated with increased taxation.

I circumvent the climate change denialists by arguing measures to manage carbon are needed independently of climate change. The imperatives to refine American energy and tax policy alone demand action regardless of one's views on climate change (which to be clear I am on the side of the vast majority of scientists who argue it is real). Pursuing a "green" economy with its related reduction of reliance on petro-states (both foreign and domestic) and re-vamping our taxes towards consumption instead of income are sufficiently worthy goals.

Things like health care reform and cap and trade wither when faced with the political realities of transformation into real legislation. Theoretical possibilities like a carbon tax are nice to talk up but ultimately ephemeral unless also exposed to those same political realities.

From Ezra Klein at WaPo:
"Quoting Paul Krugman-
'For here’s the way it is: we have a real chance of getting a serious cap and trade program in place within a year or two. We have no chance of getting a carbon tax for the foreseeable future. It’s just destructive to denounce the program we can actually get — a program that won’t be perfect, won’t be enough, but can be made increasingly effective over time — in favor of something that can’t possibly happen in time to avoid disaster.'

One way to make this point is that you see an enormous amount of smart commentary on the question of "what carbon pricing policy would we favor in a perfect world" but very little commentary on the question of "how do you improve the bills we're likely to pass?" Nor do many people argue that not passing anything now and not passing anything in the future is better than passing a compromised bill now. Instead, it's all just imagine a carbon-pricing pony ..."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/the_carbon_pricing_pony.html