Incentives and Prizes for a Cleaner Environment

Date: 11/01/07

Summary: Gingrich explains how incentives and prizes speed up innovation. The free market has the potential to provide many technological discoveries, and incentives simply hasten this process.

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NEWT: I think you get changes in behavior much faster through incentives than you do through regulations and punishment.

SACHS: But his point was that we already have incentives.

NEWT: They’re clearly not enough. For example, we don’t have incentives that make solar power competitive directly with coal. Solar power is still significantly more expensive.

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Comments

By Anonymous @ Thursday, April 24, 2008 2:50 PM

I don't think you get it. Government interference in evolving technology causes more problems, it does not solve them. Take solar, for instance. They don't need incentives or tax breaks. The market is there if they can get the price down on the panels and they are trying. I don't need a tx incentive to invest in a solar system for my house if its performance will make for a return on my investment in a reasonable time.
All the government should do is make laws realistically limiting auto smog polution, for instance, amd them let the auto industry come up with the best solution.
We don't need programs setting car milage standards. With gas prices up the american people are demanding more fuel efficient cars.
Big government programs are not the answer. Pass laws to take off the fetters and let the free enterprise system do its thing.

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