Mitt Romney, a supposed Republican from Utah, has been rethinking the entire carbon tax thing. Back when he was a governor, he was opposed to cap and trade legislation, but overall was lukewarm on climate change. It seems now that he may have found Gaia, or at least a way to use your money for you.

Now he is interested in passing a carbon tax. He says that he isn’t ready to sign anything just yet, but the idea is “interesting.”

Specifically, Romney said he is enticed by a proposal developed by former Republican Secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz as part of the Climate Leadership Council that would impose a carbon tax beginning at $40 per ton, increasing 5% every year, and return the revenue to households through equal quarterly payments, known as “dividends,” to offset higher energy prices.

“I am interested in the proposal because it may create incentives for the private sector to develop new technologies that will be adopted globally,” Romney said.

He manages to throw out a couple of chaff clouds here when he mentions that the “private sector” will be doing the developing. But developing at the direction of who? The good old government.

He then talks about the reducing global emissions, as if that is our responsibility. We have already reduced the emission of the US without a carbon tax.

“The only way we are going to reduce global emissions is to have new technologies adopted globally. I am of the same mind in some respects of Bill Gates when he says our investment and focus should be on new technology.”

Any time someone brings up Bill Gates to support an argument I start to feel queasy. The uber billionaires have so far treated the world as their play toy. They are executing their own interests under the guise of philanthropy. I don’t buy it.

But for all of the nuance that he is surrounding his argument with, it amounts to the same old political schtick. He believes in a cause, and he wants to finance it with tax dollars. This is the equivalent of tax dollars going to the National Endowment for the Arts. If the idea is that great, it should be able to stand on its own, and not require theft of tax dollars.