Clean technologies, unlike the dirty ones they replace, provide environmental and technology benefits that flow to the public and not the firms that receive the tax break. Studies show that previous tax breaks for renewable energy, for example, were necessary for the development of renewable energy technologies that now are quickly becoming competitive with coal-fired electrical generation. Eliminating these tax breaks is tantamount to raising taxes. Tax subsidy reforms are not tax increases. Tax spending does not, as some pretend, simply allow people to keep more of what they have earned.
Nothing is free, including a tax break.
Someone has to pay for it. This means that for every dollar the federal government collects, it gives back about 35 cents through loopholes and special tax breaks. This report does not suggest that all of these tax breaks should be revoked. Tax policy is a rarefied, obscure realm. Much of tax policy is very complicated, not to mention boring.