FRENCH REVOLUTION

French Revolution!
Carbon tax ruled unconstitutional just two days before taking effect
29.12.2009

France's Constitutional Council has struck down a carbon tax that was meant to take effect on January 1. The council, which is charged with ensuring the constitutionality of French legislation, said too many polluters were exempted in the measure and the tax burden was not fairly distributed.

It was estimated that 93 percent of industrial emissions, including the emissions of more than 1,000 of France's top polluting industrial sites, would be exempt from the tax, which would have charged 17 euros per ton of emitted carbon dioxide.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has argued the tax is necessary to combat climate change and reduce the country's dependence on oil.
Observers say the council's ruling is a severe blow to both Sarkozy's environmental plan and as France's budget for 2010. The government now has to find a way to come up with about 4.1 billion euros in revenue that was expected to be generated the tax.

(In France, if at least 60 Deputies of the House and 60 Senators appeal to the Constitutional Council, it has the power to pronounce on the constitutionality of a proposed law – in the present case, the 2010 national budget of France, which contained enabling provisions (loi deferee) for a carbon levy. The Council found that these enabling provisions were unconstitutional on two grounds: that the exemptions contained within the provisions for a carbon levy vitiated the primary declared purpose of the levy, to combat carbon emissions and hence “global warming”; and that the exemptions would cause the levy to fall disproportionately on gasoline and heating oils and not on other carbon emissions, thereby breaching the principle that taxation should be evenly and fairly borne.)


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/29/fr....takin g-effect/


So, the French, at least, can see the emperor has no clothes! i.e. the tax is a cynical income generating exercise which will make no contribution to its purported rationale.

I don't suppose we can expect such clarity from our own government, what with the public finances being in such a dire state, and all. Any port of call in a storm will do, no matter how irrational the decision. And with the gullible and guilt-ridden chattering classes on board, how can it fail? Don't get me wrong, I'm not personally opposed to taxation, but I find the notion of taxing the air that we breathe an insult to my intelligence.