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THE ENERGY POLICY TAX ACT GETS MAULED
June 21, 2005
Congress is set to pass the misbegotten "Energy Policy Tax Incentives Act of 2005," which will lard up the tax code with "12 new income tax credits and 2 new excise tax credits, 6 modifications and expansions of existing credits, 3 credit sunset extensions, 3 new deductions, a deduction modification, and 2 other provisions," by Professor Jim Maule's count.
We discussed this ugly legislation recently, but Prof. Maule has pitched in with much more detail, scholarship, and righteous disgust:
Americans should be expected to do what is right, even if laws need to be enacted to tell us what is right. But to rely on tax incentives to get people to do what they ought to be doing, and very well might already be doing, is wrong. Very wrong. After all, what's next, a tax credit for stopping at stop signs? A tax credit for owning a gun and going a full year without shooting someone out of anger or revenge? A tax credit for eating broccoli?
While I can quibble with some of the good professor's other policy prescriptions ("Where are the tax credits for encouraging use of passenger trains, oh, wait, Congress is cutting Amtrak funding."), his analysis of the folly of this bill is dead on.
Link: Senate language, HR. 6
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