When businesses pay a "carbon tax", it just means that their costs go up by that amount, which must be passed on to two groups (a) their shareholders (including pension funds and individual 401ks) and (b) consumers. Taxing businesses is just a way to enlist them in collecting taxes from the public. Making goods and services (like natural gas and electricity) more expensive will HURT the poor disproportionately. The idea behind the "carbon tax" is to try to make alternative energy sources more financially competitive, which means that even if they switch to lower CO2 alternatives, the cost will still be much higher than now. We will have a permanent inflation in energy costs, and thus costs of everything we buy. The whole anti-CO2 movement is meant to change energy from a cheap commodity derived from Coal to a premium and expensive product with much higher profit margins, which is why Gore is part owner of such a company. He's going to make a killing once we adopt his policy recommendations. Meanwhile, more US manufacturing will have to move to China to get cheap energy, and the jobs for the working poor will dry up.