One more intelligent thing the US will never do

This from the New York Times this past December:

 

In Ireland, Carbon Taxes Pay Off

 

DUBLIN — Over the last three years, with its economy in tatters, Ireland embraced a novel strategy to help reduce its staggering deficit: charging households and businesses for the environmental damage they cause.

 

The government imposed taxes on most of the fossil fuels used by homes, offices, vehicles and farms, based on each fuel’s carbon dioxide emissions, a move that immediately drove up prices for oil, natural gas and kerosene. Household trash is weighed at the curb, and residents are billed for anything that is not being recycled.

      

The Irish now pay purchase taxes on new cars and yearly registration fees that rise steeply in proportion to the vehicle’s emissions.

      

Environmentally and economically, the new taxes have delivered results. Long one of Europe’s highest per-capita producers of greenhouse gases, with levels nearing those of the United States, Ireland has seen its emissions drop more than 15 percent since 2008.

      

Although much of that decline can be attributed to a recession, changes in behavior also played a major role, experts say, noting that the country’s emissions dropped 6.7 percent in 2011 even as the economy grew slightly.

 

But here in America?  And infringe on our "rights"?  No way. Not even if we'll reap benefits from it. It's far too "Gestapo" for us, isn't it?

 

It's the same reason why we have this broken, for-profit health care system that's killing so many of us.

 

And our guns, of course.  We must have lots and lots of guns and as little to no regulation of them at all. That's far better.

 

We're far too proud for all that smarty-pants stuff.