‘This was tactically clever on Leader McConnell’s part, but strategically not smart at all because now we’re talking about climate…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As its Democrat supporters made clear they would not participate in either a vote or a serious public debate on the Green New Deal launched by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., questions lingered as to just what the goal was for releasing the proposed framework in early February.
The Congressional Western Caucus yesterday held what it promoted as the first in-depth public review of the radical spending program, which would add trillions in debt to the economy while gutting at least one major U.S. industry—fossil fuels—in its bid to eliminate carbon emissions within 10 years.
Notably absent from the hearing were representatives of groups advocating for the GND, despite several having been invited to participate.
Shaky Economics
The Congressional Western Caucus cited liberal economist Noah Smith that the total cost of the GND proposal is estimated at $93 trillion—or $65,000 per household annually for the first 10 years.
Even without some of the more outlandish promises from the revised FAQ section of the GND framework, it would amount to $6.6 trillion annually, currently much more than the annual gross domestic product of every country in the world except for the U.S. and China.
“That is three times as much as the federal government collects in tax revenue and about 34% of U.S. GDP,” said a memo released by the caucus. “Under the Green New Deal, Smith estimates that nearly 75% of the economy would be spent by the government.”
Ocasio-Cortez has said the plan would be paid for by running up deficits: asking the Federal Reserve to extend credit and having “government taking an equity stake in projects”—in other words, print more money and socialize private industry.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, however, denounced the shaky theoretical foundation of the ‘AOC’ economic plan as “just wrong” while dismissing the notion of Fed involvement.
The Congressional Western Caucus, in its fact-sheet on GND costs, said the main economic argument by supporters of the deal was little more than a deflection.
“When asked, supporters of the Green Deal don’t have a well thought out solution to pay for it,” the CWC said. “Often they instead claim the cost of inaction is higher or come up with some other spin that deflects from how much the Green New Deal will actually cost and how American taxpayers will pay for those costs.”
Representatives from several pro-energy and free-market groups spoke Wednesday at the CWC’s panel hearing, but GND advocates who were invited—such as Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning fake-economist and New York Times opinion columnist—did not answer the call.
The Sierra Club also declined, and the Sunrise Movement—the group of child–activists who protested earlier this week in the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.—failed to respond.
Meanwhile, E&E News reported that Evan Weber, co-founder and political director of the Sunrise Movement, publicly encouraged Senate Democrats to vote “present” on the current Senate resolution that McConnell plans on bringing to the floor.
“This vote is a sham,” Weber said. “Mitch McConnell obviously doesn’t support [the Green New Deal] so he’s trying to put [the vote] forward as a political ploy.”
The Long Con
It thus remains a mystery, when the groups vocally promoting the deal reject both policy discussions and floor votes, how they intend to advance the measure—particularly as they have said the 10-year plan is needed immediately so that the world doesn’t end in 12 years.
However, some see in the effort a strategy pulled straight from the Alinsky–Obama playbook: to make extreme demands as a starting bid and allow them, over time, to seep into mainstream thought.
“I think this [floor vote] was tactically clever on Leader McConnell’s part, but strategically not smart at all because now we’re talking about climate,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told reporters on Monday. “And that’s not terra firma for them.”
Even if the plan fails to garner immediate support and is widely mocked and dismissed, by giving validity to it in public debate, both Republicans and Democrats are helping move the chains toward an eventual “availability cascade” that will position parts of it to be enacted when the radicalized Left ultimately regains power.
The House version of the bill currently has 89 co-sponsors joining Ocasio–Cortez, while the Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has 11 other co-sponsors—more than half of whom have declared they are running for president in 2020.
Many of the GND’s Democratic detractors also have carefully measured their words, calling it “aspirational” even if presently impractical.
“What we would love for all Democrats to do is come to the table and begin to help flesh out the many policy details that will be needed to actually make the Green New Deal a reality,” said Weber, as his Sunrise Movement continued to lobby Congress aggressively despite the arrest of more than 40 of its child–activists.
Eventually, the common-sense, expert testimony presented in dry, dull hearings like the Congressional Western Caucus’s will lose out to the flashier images of insolent young protestors reciting patently false, half-memorized talking points overtop of surly, scolding senators.
Although much has been made about the Sunrise Movement’s alarming use of children to shout down elected officials, one thing that it clearly shows is that they are in it for the long haul. The 10-year plan to fully implement the GND may, in fact, involve nine years of indoctrination and brainwashing, followed by one year of extreme legislative action.
And if the $93 trillion pricetag never gains enough steam to reach the lofty net-zero emissions goal by 2029, undoubtedly then-President AOC will assuage her followers by instead settling for only $50 trillion and the end of U.S. capitalism.