Cap and trade vs. carbon taxes

Brad DeLong sums up:

I would say that to first order cap-and-trade and carbon taxes are the same, that there are five first-order differences:

• Cap-and-trade involves less redistribution because the losses of
  the losers are partially offset by their initial awards of tradeable
  permits.
• Cap-and-trade runs the risk that the cap will be set at the wrong
  place and so the price will go damagingly above its social optimum
  value.
• Carbon taxes run the risk that the tax will be set too low and so
  the quantity emitted will go damagingly above its social optimum value.
• Carbon taxes have the advantage that the government gets money that
  it can use for good–either to cut existing taxes that have large
  deadweight losses or to expand underfunded programs that have large
  social benefits.
• Carbon taxes have the disadvantage that the government gets money
  that it can use for ill, and that the recipients and beneficiaries of
  that ill-used money will then dig in and defend their rent-seeking
  gains beyond death itself.

and that there are two third-order differences:

• It’s easier to get not-too-bright Republicans to vote against
  something that is actually in their long-run interest if you can
  demagogue it by calling it a tax.
• It’s easier to get not-too-bright Democrats to vote for something
  that actually is not in their long-run interest if you can demagogue it
  by claiming that it’s just a restriction on the behavior of corporations and not something that directly impacts people.

The fourth-order considerations would, of course, look at time consistency problems and irreversibility problems.