The Government plan to raise $300 billion in revenue from this. That is a real extraction of real money from real families. Its not a lie. The MIT study itself project $3100 in taxes per family that are raised through this. To pretend this money is not a cost nor a tax, or that it doesnt count due to some mythical rebate (that is not leigslatively assured) is pure sophistry. Whether and how this money is recycled back, either via Govt programs or rebates elsewhere is irrelevent. The tax is real.

Nobody pretends real estate taxes are zero for a household simply because the money goes into schools and comes back to benefit some families. Higher energy bills to pay for CO2 permits will NOT be cost-free.

“requires the assumption that value of the market magically disappears somewhere.” This is not a ‘market’ – this is Government taxation-through-permitting and redistribution scheme. There is nothing ‘market’ about it. And therefore it has no ‘value’. It’s a big Enron-like scam to look like a market, but like Enron will end up being a fraud scheme.