Republican elders float carbon tax, plan White House lobbying campaign

Washington (CNN)Hoping to jump-start the debate on climate change, a
group of high-profile Republicans that includes three former Cabinet
secretaries is calling for a substantial new carbon tax, and then to
offset the pain higher prices cause the middle class by returning all
money raised to American taxpayers.

Other members of the new group include:

George Shultz, who has led the Labor, Treasury and State
departments as well as serving as director of the Office of Management
and Budget;

Hank Paulson, who was Treasury secretary in the George W. Bush
administration;
Martin Feldstein, a conservative economist who led President
Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic advisers;
Greg Mankiw, the CEA chief for George W. Bush;
Rob Walton, former Walmart chairman of the board of directors;
California venture capitalist Thomas Stephenson;
Ted Halstead, founder of the New America Foundation.

One interesting wrinkle in the new group’s pitch: Republicans of
yesterday trying to shake the party’s current leadership to move on an
issue they cast as critical to the GOP’s future.
“Increasingly, climate change is becoming a defining issue for this
next generation of Americans, which the GOP ignores at its own peril,”
the new proposal says. “Meanwhile Asians and Hispanics — the fastest
growing demographic groups — are also deeply concerned about climate
change. A carbon dividends plan offers an opportunity to appeal to all
three key demographics, while illustrating for them the superiority of
market- based solutions. ”

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