Surprise: Americans Still Do Not Want To Pay To Solve Hotcoldwetdry

Whenever the question is asked of how much Americans are willing to pay to stop climate doom, most aren’t thrilled with using their own money

What Is The Right Price To Pay To Combat Climate Change?

Last weekend I read the report “Politics Without Winners CAN EITHER PARTY BUILD A MAJORITY COALITION?” by Ruy Teixeira and Yuval Levin of the center-right think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The Executive Summary begins by noting that “In the American political system, the parties’ purpose is to form enduring national coalitions. Look at almost any point in American history, and you will find a majority party working to sustain a complex coalition and a minority party hoping to recapture the majority. Today, however, American politics features two minority parties, and neither seems interested in building a national coalition.” It then goes on to analyze how a majority party might arise.

In doing so, in the short section “Energy Realism” (pp. 39-41), it addresses how Americans view the challenge of climate change and what must be done to address it. In this section it discusses survey findings where respondents were asked how much they would pay on top of their monthly utility bill to combat climate change. The increments were $1, $10, $20, and $75 dollars. At a mere $1 only seven percent of respondents were more willing to pay this than not. Twice as many political independents opposed this charge than supported it. Support from the working class was less than for those with a college education where there was a 20 point difference.

Margins widened at $10. Working class respondents opposed this by 30 points and moderates and independents by 20 points. “Raising the proposed levy to combat climate change to $20 a month appeared to reach a breaking point.” The spread for the working class and moderates widened to 40 points and to 50 points for independents. Even the college educated opposed this by 20 points. At $75 dollars support almost completely disappeared. “In fact, even liberal white college graduates couldn’t bring themselves to vote in favor of a $75 levy.”

Too bad they didn’t put it in chart form and/or show the specific answers, but, you get the idea. People are fine with Someone Else bear the monetary burden, just not themselves.

I’d still like to see a survey that only includes true Warmists to see what they say.

So what do these numbers mean? I draw two broad conclusions. The first is that for a large percentage of Americans (nearly half) paying fees to combat climate change is a luxury good they can’t afford to pay. The second is that even those who can afford it at the $75 level are unwilling to do so.

Hence, government must force citizens to pay it.

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