NW
What, exactly, is so much worse about a tax on carbon than a tax on labor, or capital, or whatever?
However, you did not mention the issue of the compliance cost of measuring and monitoring CO2 emissions. It seems to me, to tax a commodity you need to be able to measure the quantities accurately. But that is virtually impossible with emissions of CO2-eq. See my comment to Pekka Pirila here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/06/03/conservative-perspectives-on-climate-change/#comment-206301
Have you done a rough estimate of what the compliance cost would be for the USA? Could it be $230 billion per year (or more) ($21 billion per year admitted by the EPA, and at least ten times that figure for the costs to business)?