Ocasio Cortez's Green New Deal
The actual resolution that outlines the Green New Deal does not include the “unwilling to work” part, but the overview document, released by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office, does. The Green New Deal calls for the creation of a “Corporation for Economic Democracy, a new federal corporation to provide publicity, training, education, and direct financing for cooperative development and for democratic reforms to make government agencies, private associations, and business enterprises more participatory.”.
These transportation mandates, coupled with the Green New Deal’s call for the U.S. To have “net-zero emissions by 2050,” will impact nearly every sector of the economy and every region of the country–especially the Rust Belt states that were crucial to President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory. The Green New Deal offers a unique chance to stop the worst effects of climate change, writes Dr Steven Hail. YOU MUST HAVE noticed the emergence of a new political phenomenon in Washington D.C. – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The youngest ever Congresswoman – she has the values, the attitude and the agenda you might expect from a progressive.
Details of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s long‐awaited Green New Deal have dropped. On Thursday, alongside Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, she published a resolution and Q&A document that laid out the aims and tools intended to transform the United States into a zero net emissions economy.
At least, that’s how it was sold.
Delve into the text, and the climate change‐curbing veneer amounts to a Trojan horse for a bigger nationalization of the economy than seen under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The sponsors themselves say their goal is the “massive transformation of our society” in a progressive image, rather than simply stopping global warming.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is the biggest single government expansion since the 1930s, masquerading as climate policy.
How else can one explain policies that include a federal jobs guarantee, economic security for those unable to work, provision of housing, free health care, higher education for all and a family living wage? Besides the plan’s calls for electrifying the whole transport system and undertaking a crippling federal financing of renewable energy over 10 years, it reads like a wish list for socializing the economy.
It is hard to make a good faith critique of this plan, because it features a nearly complete denial of trade‐offs or costs. This is surprising given that Ocasio‐Cortez herself has a degree in economics, for which the study of trade‐offs is the basis.
Take the environmental policy proposals, for example. Most Americans believe that climate change is happening, is influenced by human activity and has social costs. The idea that private action alone cannot overcome this, and governments must act, is a reasonable view.
Ocasio Cortez Green New Deal Resolution
The cost of going ‘green’
But even in some parallel universe where it was possible to implement an agenda that would replace the whole country’s energy supply with government‐financed renewables, refurbish every building to improve energy efficiency, eliminate gas burning cars, build extensive high‐speed rail and cut the number of flights and cows to near zero, the cost would be astronomical.
Ocasio Cortez Green New Deal
Previous estimates from Stanford engineers of meeting power demand through clean, renewable zero‐emission energy sources put capital costs at $14.6 trillion (almost three‐quarters of current annual GDP). The running costs, coupled with all the other environmental programs, would therefore take up a huge chunk of economic resources, effectively cutting vast private sector activity.
That’s why the resolution seeks to mobilize society as in World War II, which Ocasio‐Cortez claims is the appropriate analogy.If the nation can be convinced the overwhelming social goal is countering the existential threat of climate change at all costs, then people would be willing to make sacrifices — be it lost economic growth, fewer flights or less beef.
Yet it’s difficult to make that case when you then tack on a myriad of unrelated policies to the program. According to the resolution, decarbonization must also be supported by a massive expansion of social spending. Ocasio-Cortez’s plan suggests it’s not true that we must take a hit today to ensure the planet’s future — according to this we’ll be richer too!
Just to ram home the absence of trade‐offs, we are also told this will be financed by printed money. Ocasio‐Cortez subscribes to the view that governments can apparently spend and spend forever, with the only constraint being the capacity of the economy. Yet, even under the crank Modern Monetary Theory model that recommends this, inflation will surely result from so much new government spending.
By investing in inefficient energy sources and taking labor and capital away from productive industries, economic capacity will shrink as well — making this outcome more likely.
Ordinarily, a pitch to put society on a war footing to adopt expensive power sources, restrict people’s ability to fly and eat what they want, and redistribute vast new sums of printed money would be considered politically bonkers. Yet remarkably, Democratic presidential candidates, including Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, have endorsed this resolution.
It’s easy to think they’ve lost their minds. But maybe they’ve noted that it’s easy to label those who disagree on climate policy as being “deniers” of science itself. By tagging this a “Green New Deal,” Democrats can shift debate toward radical unrelated positions, denouncing those who oppose them as wanting to kill the planet itself.
Make no mistake, this green‐painted Trojan horse is filled with the biggest single government expansion the United States has seen since the 1930s.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “is the leader — everybody knows it, everybody feels it. She’s the leader of this mass movement.” — Michael Moore
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is loud, perpetually outraged, and not particularly bright. In fact, saying she’s not particularly bright is kind of like saying Antarctica is not particularly hot. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez IS what the mainstream media THOUGHT Sarah Palin was when she first came on the scene except she’s liberal, dumb, and considerably less accomplished.
Her first huge (albeit non-binding) policy initiative and the FAQ that goes along with the #Greennewdeal seems like the sort of drek a dimwitted high school student would have cobbled together after listening to a couple of Noam Chomsky videos. It is truly radical, wildly impractical, and completely oblivious to the enormous problems it would cause. There’s also nothing of significance in there about how much all of this will cost, how to pay for any of it, or what the impact will be on the economy once you get beyond this unintentionally hilarious line in the FAQ:
The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit. There is also space for the government to take an equity stake in projects to get a return on investment. At the end of the day, this is an investment in our economy that should grow our wealth as a nation, so the question isn’t how will we pay for it, but what will we do with our new shared prosperity.
I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “People exaggerate so much these days in politics. How bad could it be? Particularly since Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Cory Booker (Spartacus-N.J.) endorsed it?” Read the six greatest moments from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal and I think you’ll see that the Democratic Party has gotten even wackier than you thought.
1. It calls for getting rid of airplanes
In Cortez’s FAQ, she specifically notes that she’s not sure that they will be able to get rid of airplanes in 10 years’ time. Of course, that idea, near and dear to the hearts of environmental extremists, is insane. Outside of China, where the government can do and take whatever it wants, there’s not a single nation on the planet that has built enough high-speed rail to even go from one side of the country to the other. Furthermore, high-speed rail works much better in areas with a dense population — which doesn’t describe most of the United States. Then there’s Hawaii. What, are we just supposed to take boats back and forth to the Aloha State? If you travel from San Diego to D.C., are you good with spending days on a bus going each way rather than just taking an 8-hour flight? Because if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets her way, that is exactly what you’ll be doing. I guess we’re lucky that Cortez hasn’t demanded that the buses play Al Gore’s monotone voice on an endless loop, lecturing us about global warming while we take our cross-country bus trips.
2. It calls for getting rid of cows
Why cows? Because environmentalist wackos are upset that they fart too much methane into the air. Yes, really. So enjoy those burgers and steaks while you can, because if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets her way, you’ll be eating tofu and potatoes to break up the monotony of kale burgers.
3. It calls for upgrading EVERY BUILDING IN THE UNITED STATES “to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification”
That’s right. Your house, the mom and pop grocery around the corner, the bait and tackle shop run by that creepy old guy who’s a little drunk when you show up at noon? They ALL are going to need significant upgrades totaling thousands of dollars and who would be surprised if we’ll be made to put up a picture of America’s newer, dumber version of Mao while it’s all being done?
4. It calls for the United States to be free of carbon emissions in ten years without the use of nuclear power
This is kind of like calling for the Arizona summer to be free of sweat without the use of air conditioning. Currently, wind and solar power make up 7.7 percent of U.S. power. Furthermore, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, it’s not always sunny, and not everywhere in the U.S. is particularly sunny or windy in the first place. Even if it were possible to build enough solar and wind power to replace gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power — which it isn’t, given the current technology on the market — the cost of trying to do it in ten years instead of letting it occur more naturally when (and if) the market is ready, would reach into the trillions of dollars.
5. We should get rid of gas-powered cars in a decade
Currently, electric cars comprise roughly one percent of the U.S. market. In other words, there are over 250 million cars on the road and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s idea is to trash them so they can be replaced with trillions of dollars in high-speed rail (that couldn’t practically serve much of the country) along with overpriced, underpowered, under-ranged electric cars most Americans don’t want. The Green New Deal doesn’t seem like such a great deal if you own a car.
6. It promises “economic security” for those “unwilling to work”
Maybe it’s just the archaic values that were drummed into me in pre-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez America, but it seems like a bad idea to tell people, “Whether you choose to ever work or not, you’re still going to be economically secure.” I know that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez probably doesn’t know this, but “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” has been tried out before and it didn’t work very well.