McArdle: Marking Up Waxman-Markey

There is some very angry back and forth about the CBO’s scoring of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. Economically, I agree, the per-household costs seem to be small. Politically, they may be much larger than their economic cost, for two reasons: first, I’m not sure people are going to put any rebate in the same mental basket as the higher prices, and second, people aren’t going to pay the costs on a per-household basis. Some households will suffer a lot, while others will be net beneficiaries. Matt, Ezra, Ryan and I are all probably among the net beneficiaries.