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Why Dividends for America?

The formation of this group was inspired by a report by Harvard Professor Theda Skocpol in January 2013 called Naming the Problem, where she discusses the challenges of passing national climate legislation. She looks to the health care issue as an example of a broad coalition that was successful in passing a health care law, and especially the group Health Care for America Now.

The analysis that led to the formation of Dividends for America is that dividends are a key component to broaden the coalition that would support a carbon price. This coalition will build upon previous organizing efforts around Cap & Dividend and Fee & Dividend, and reach out to new constituencies about the importance of dividends as part of a carbon pricing system.

On page 123 of the Naming the Problem report, Skocpol concludes: “For inside the Beltway types, the easy choice will be to try ever more insider efforts to get a cap and trade system or carbon taxes, with new revenues to be dispensed in relatively opaque ways through complicated stakeholder bargains. But for strategists who suspect that more of the same kind of politics will not work, cap and dividend approaches hold the possibility of constructing a new political movement in the next few years. A carefully organized drive for cap and dividend might well bring together environmental advocates, green businesses, and many unions and citizen associations to support the enactment of carbon-emissions caps and the subsequent ratcheting-up of the tax levels to ensure that the United States completes a transition to a green economy, with ordinary citizens reaping economic benefits along the way.”