Gore calls for elimination of payroll taxes, CO2 freeze RAW STORY

Published: Monday September 18, 2006 Print This Email This Former Vice President Al Gore has called for the end of the payroll tax and a freeze on CO2 emissions to "solve the climate crisis," RAW STORY has learned. "My purpose," Gore told a crowd at NYU, "is not to present a comprehensive and detailed blueprint, for that is a task for our democracy as a whole." Gore is calling on lawmakers to "expand the limits of what is politically possible" and take major action to halt global warming. "We should start by immediately freezing CO2 emissions," Gore indicated, "and then beginning sharp reductions." Gore also called for a ratification of the Kyoto Treaty. "Third, a responsible approach to solutions would avoid the mistake of trying to find a single magic 'silver bullet,'" he elaborated, "and recognize that the answer will involve what Bill McKibben has called 'silver-buckshot' -- numerous important solutions, all of which are hard, but no one of which is by itself the full answer for our problem." The former Vice President also called for a "revenue-neutral tax-swap," eliminating all payroll taxes in exchange for pollutant taxes. "For the last fourteen years," he claimed, "I have advocated the elimination of all payroll taxes -- including those for social security and unemployment compensation -- and the replacement of that revenue in the form of pollution taxes, principally on CO2." But Gore said it's up to the American people to demand action. "When the politicians are paralyzed in the face of a great threat," he explained, "our nation needs a popular movement, a rallying cry, a standard, a mandate that is broadly supported on a bipartisan basis." The former Presidential candidate plans to spend the next year campaigning for the cause.



