Let us call RGGI by its proper name.
It is a tax.
More precisely, it is a tax that eventually works its way into the price of almost everything.
And like every tax, it is first and foremost a source of government revenue.
If history has taught us anything, it is that governments develop an extraordinary reluctance to surrender revenue once they have grown accustomed to collecting it. The money is no longer viewed as temporary. It is already spoken for. It has been woven into budgets stretching years into the future. Entire programmes have come to depend upon it.
Remove that revenue and uncomfortable questions immediately arise.
Which projects get cancelled?
Which departments lose funding?
Which promises suddenly become impossible to keep?
That is where politics begins.
Some of those projects may well serve legitimate public purposes. Others exist because they reward political priorities, strengthen institutional influence, satisfy powerful constituencies, or provide highly visible opportunities to demonstrate that government is “doing something.” Large contracts cultivate grateful corporations. Grants create dependable allies. Every budget develops its own ecosystem of beneficiaries, each with a vested interest in ensuring the flow of money never slows.
None of them are eager to volunteer for cuts.
If you lead a major political party, you did not arrive there empty-handed.
You made promises.
You assembled coalitions.
You attracted donors, supporters, lobbyists, activists, local officials, and countless organisations that all expect those promises to become reality once power has been secured.
Promises are expensive.
Political capital is expensive.
Government itself is expensive.
All of it requires revenue.
That is why taxes, regardless of the language wrapped around them, become so difficult to unwind. Once the money enters the system, every recipient acquires a reason to defend it. Every bureaucratic layer develops an argument for its necessity. Every beneficiary discovers that yesterday’s temporary measure has quietly become today’s indispensable institution.
There will, of course, be hearings.
There will be debates.
There will be committees.
There will be studies examining every conceivable option.
There will be solemn discussions about reform, efficiency, fairness, and balance.
But beneath the speeches lies a much simpler reality.
They want the revenue.
Everything else is theatre.
Compete with that.