By TEMPLE LI
What is “The Green New Deal.” Is it piles of green currency being poured into the nation’s coffers to reduce the national debt, currently estimated at $22 trillion? Will it reduce the debt for which our children, their children and their children’s children will be responsible because of our nation’s continued proclivity toward uncontrolled spending? No? Then what is it?
It is apparently a mish-mosh of socialist programs and climate control measures estimated by Trump’s advisors to cost $100 trillion or more and recently proposed by Senator Edward Markey of Rhode Island and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. It is supported in greater or lesser degrees by members of the Democrat party, depending on how in touch with reality they happen to be.
The Green New Deal has been around for a while and was the major part of the Green Party’s platform in 2016. Many of the current Democrat presidential hopefuls are espousing this proposal, either as an aspirational goal or for some, like Bernie Sanders, including at least parts of it into their platforms.
Even if you are a proponent of reducing greenhouse emissions and support the Paris Accord’s climate control efforts, the goals of zero emissions by 2050 are unattainable based on recent article in the New York Times citing data from the Climate Action Tracker. But that is exactly what the Green New Deal proposes.
Somehow worked into this Green New Deal are shades of socialism related to Medicare for all and fiscal security for everyone, including those unwilling to work. Capitalism is loudly decried and the democratic socialism of Sweden is applauded. The strongest voices are socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a millennium whose recent appearance on the political scene has caused much controversy within the Democrat party. They apparently missed the part about Sweden’s fiscal ranking of 15th as a pro-free market system as opposed to the U.S. ranking of 18th globally.
Sweden experienced its economic heyday prior to the 1960’s, at which time they started implementing redistribution of wealth programs without wealth being created. This caused an exodus of wealthy Swedes and entrepreneurs and starting in 1994 Sweden attempted to curb this trend by introducing programs to reduce regulation, reform welfare and shrink government and its spending patterns. Sweden still maintains a plethora of expensive benefits for its citizens which they support through a personal income tax of 61.85%, plus a 7% social security tax for those employed, as well as a 25% consumption tax. It offers a single payer health care system, which rations health care and like Canadians who also have a one payer system, has caused many of Sweden’s citizens to seek medical treatment more expeditiously outside of its borders.
Its social policies are becoming unsustainable, particularly due to an aging workforce and lower birth rates than what is needed for them to maintain their population—1.67 per female as opposed to the needed 2.1 births. (Wasn’t it AOC who suggested that we stop having children?) Additionally, an influx of immigrants that failed to assimilate into the labor force and are maintained on the public dole is also contributing to Sweden’s economic problems. The left needs to be careful what it wishes for.
So, if you are confused about The Green New Deal, what exactly it entails and how we would pay for it, you are not alone. The party that is proposing it apparently can’t agree upon its parameters, its costs and how it is to be implemented.
However, what we need to beware! Emply barrels make the most noise as they go downhill. The radical liberal democrats are drawing in the crowds and inciting their followers, but they are taking us on the same road as those empty barrels—down, not up!
Temple Li is the news editor for Empire State News, where she frequently authors her own editorials (just because she feels like it). She graduated at the top of her class at a mediocre college, infuriating her professors with her conservative wit and sultry charm. Empire State News allows Ms. Li to make a living, and to have a platform to tell people what she thinks. What could be better than that?
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