The far-left Democrats finally unveiled their plan for their “Green New Deal.” It’s a shocking document, essentially a call for enviro-socialism in America. It’s no doubt prompting many across the nation to wonder: Has this once-respectable political party of the working class gone collectively mad?
It sure seems that way. Reading the Green New Deal (GND) plan, put out Thursday by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, one is tempted to think it’s not real, just a joke from the satirical “The Onion.” The individual planks in the plan, individually and collectively, sound like the rantings of someone who should be institutionalized, not like a rational political plan to solve a real problem.
Let’s begin with what the plan promises: “a massive transformation of our society with clear goals and a timeline.”
That’s a sweeping, explicit pledge of radical socialist change. And that’s not all. It offers “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all.”
That’s right: 10 years. They’ve made it the “moral equivalent of war,” that phrase by American philosopher William James that the left pulls out every time they want to impose radical change on the rest of us.
‘Massive Transformation’
This is how all truly radical disasters begin, with a glorious Utopian promise of “massive transformation.”
But whether it was the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, or China’s Great Leap Forward and its subsequent Cultural Revolution, or any other glorious socialist revolution, they all end the same way: With declining standards of living, loss of freedom and even death. That’s how socialism always works.
In a glowing report and interview with Ocasio-Cortez, NPR helpfully summarizes what the GND would mean:
- ” ‘upgrading all existing buildings’ in the country for energy efficiency;
working with farmers ‘to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions … as much as is technologically feasible’ (while supporting family farms and promoting “universal access to healthy food”); - ‘Overhauling transportation systems’ to reduce emissions — including expanding electric car manufacturing, building ‘charging stations everywhere,’ and expanding high-speed rail to ‘a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary’;
- A guaranteed job ‘with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security’ for every American;
- ‘High-quality health care’ for all Americans.”
Let’s untangle all this. The Democrats would eliminate all air travel. Upgrade and retrofit all buildings, whether they need it or not, at indeterminate cost. Have more electric cars built, not because consumers want them or can even afford them, but because government demands it; would guarantee government jobs for all; and, of course, “high-quality health care” for everyone.
Cost? They Don’t Know
Oh, and, by the way. They don’t know how much it will cost. But of course, those who support this don’t care. As with socialists everywhere, this is about power and control. Cost be damned.
It is, essentially, a government takeover of the entire economy, with “global warming” or “climate change” as the pretense. The likes of 29-year-old AOC and extreme left Sen. Ed Markey, of all people, would would determine your quality of life.
In a tweet, Scott Parker, former deputy director of research at the Republican National Committee, did the basic math on just one item: the “upgrading” or replacing all buildings.
It sounds innocent enough, but isn’t. “That means retrofitting 39,179 buildings/housing units every day for 10 years straight,” he notes, based on the 137.4 million housing units and 5.6 million commercial buildings in the U.S., according to government data.
Add all the other items on the Green New Deal agenda up, and the costs quickly run into the hundreds of trillions of dollars.
But the Congressional Budget Office now estimates federal spending of roughly $62 trillion over the next decade. So even without estimates, taxes clearly would have to rise sharply — that is, more than double — to even come close to paying for some of the Green New Deal wish list.
Green New Deal: Doubling Taxes?
Do you want to double your taxes for their agenda?
Calling this a “plan” is far too polite. Call it instead organized theft disguised as a plan. Sound harsh? It isn’t. Those who support this rancid Green New Deal policy idea would steal your wealth, your freedom and your future, while leaving you living in a dirtier, more dangerous and far more impoverished world. That’s theft.
Nor is the Green New Deal forward-looking, “progressive,” as its socialist promoters insist. It’s the opposite. It’s retrograde: An attempt to kill off the free-market system, the only truly successful economic system ever devised.
“The so-called Green New Deal resolution presented today by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is a Back-to-the-Dark Ages Manifesto,” said Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment. “It calls for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in ten years, ‘upgrading all existing buildings’, and replacing our vehicle fleet with electric cars and more mass transit. And turning our energy economy upside down must be accomplished while ending historic income inequities and oppression of disadvantaged groups. Needless to say, the costs would be stupendous, and the damage done by its policies would be catastrophic.”
We’re grateful that President Trump threw down the gantlet against socialism during his Tuesday night State of the Union address. As he said, “America will never be a Socialist country.” And he drove that point home by adding: “We were born free and we will stay free.”
Scourge Of Socialism
We hope he’s right, and America’s declining education system and the increasingly far-left mainstream media have’t made socialism a palatable choice against the extraordinary success of the free market. Socialism is among humanity’s worst ideas and it has failed everywhere — everywhere — it has been tried.
Those who don’t think the socialist disaster of Venezuela can happen here are sadly — tragically — mistaken.
It should never be tried again, anywhere, but especially not here.