Sell your body to the polluters

Photo by Todd Sanders. Licensed via Creative Commons.
"Cap-and rebate" would be a more sensible, persuasive frame for the President than his existing "cap-and-trade" proposal, according to this suggestion by Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter:

Banks remain loathed, which means that financial regulation, including a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, should be within reach if Obama can elevate his game on framing issues persuasively—and win over a couple of GOP senators, which is doable. Energy is just a few tweaks away from being a political winner. Changing cap-and-trade to the far more sensible cap-and-rebate (in which polluters' fees go straight back to the public as checks) could make it very popular—and confirm the role of clean energy in rebuilding the economy.

I'm not so sure Alter should be giving the President framing tips.  It sounds like his idea - giving the public cash every time a company exceeds a pollution cap - is an even clearer demonstration of the whole "pay to pollute" concept, in which the capped corporation gets a chance to release its illicit discharge in exchange for cash.  If the public gets the cash, it thus takes on the role of the oldest profession, and receiving "dirty checks" in the mail would remind John and Jane Q. Public that they had sold their bodies (i.e. their health) to the highest bidder.

But maybe Alter is right after all.  Reinforcing the frame of pollution as vice - and painting the public an immoral, self-destructive participant in that vice - could spark an outbreak of emotionally evisceral outrage about pollution that comes in handy for a politician pushing clean energy.