The cost of the Green New Deal on the left is so great that most Americans may never be able to appreciate its true size. Now, thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, maybe they can.
Last year, a study co-authored by former head of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found the price of a 10-year GND sticker could reach $ 93 trillion – a figure that sounds like Monopoly money.
But with America locked and the economy shrinking (first quarter GDP fell by almost 5 percent and possibly going down by 40 percent in the second), Congress has swooped in with millions of dollars worth of rescue: $ 2.2 trillion in March and maybe $ 1 trillion others in the coming weeks.
But to pay for the Green New Deal, which Democratic nominee Joe Biden calls “an important framework” for combating climate change, Washington must double that expenditure – every year for a decade. (And fiscal bloodshed will not end there.)
“Green New Deal is definitely very expensive,” noted the American Action Forum learn. Indeed, “the breadth of proposals makes it difficult to judge.”
Plus, expanding “the role of the federal government in some of the most basic decisions in everyday life” will “likely have a more lasting and destructive effect than the enormous price tag.”
The fact is, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other supporters basically called for exactly the kind of economic closure that is being experienced by this nation – only on a larger scale.
While Americans currently avoid air travel, for example, GND will basically ban aircraft altogether. Gasoline car too. And anything that burns fossil fuels.
Lovers of steak will miss the lack of meat that is triggered by viruses today after GND rid of bloated cows.
And tens of millions of people who are out of work thanks to the lockdown will be very few compared to those who are unemployed under the AOC plan, which offers “economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work,” a fact sheet revealed with the statement.
The loss of freedom under GND will also exceed those lost under social security, because bureaucrats determine how you live, eat, travel and work.
Indeed, the sacrifice must be greater than now because even with the close of the global economy, carbon emissions are projected to fall by only 6 percent, while some analysts believe they need to drop close to 8 percent to defeat climate change.
Proponents see emission reductions as the bright side of the pandemic: “This is what rapid, wide-ranging and unprecedented change is in all aspects of society,” tweeted climate activist Eric Holthaus noted. “We are doing it. It may be!”
Actually, it’s hard to see the bright side of this epidemic, but it offers a useful sense of life under GND – not many Americans care.
