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American Consumers Are Paying a Climate Disruption Tax of 2.
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Author:  Wayne Stollings [ Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:29 am ]
Post subject:  American Consumers Are Paying a Climate Disruption Tax of 2.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/plehn ... _223174255

In South Dakota, voters recently rejected a one-penny increase in sales tax. “I feel we’re taxed enough already,” explained Kristi Schnider, a 35-year-old assistant manager at Applebee’s, to the Argus Leader.

The irony is that South Dakota residents are being hit with another, far greater, hidden tax—the cost of climate disruption. Last year’s prolonged and severe drought, which reduced corn yields by 18 percent and led ranchers to sell off their cattle and sheep, cost the state an estimated $1.7 billion. That cost would be the equivalent of tripling South Dakota’s sales tax rate, from 4 percent to more than 12 percent--a far greater hurt than that politically unachievable penny. And last year’s extreme weather wasn’t confined to South Dakota. It hit nearly every state in the nation, with a cost equivalent to raising sales tax rates across the country by an average of 2.7 percentage points.

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