The Green New Deal is Faulty

“Resolution: Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.”
H.R. 109 as authored by Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, February 7, 2019

From the beginning, the Green New Deal (GND) has been a framework for a vast new government takeover of industry, while further increasing regulation on businesses. It has never been a legitimate deal to curb climate change, although pieces of the resolution address this problem. Over the next few weeks I will reveal the framework of the Green New Deal as it pertains to governmental changes and how it addresses climate change. I will continue this blog series to address a logical, economically feasible, and common sense way forward to serve the following purposes:

1) Work to reduce emissions and prevent any irreversible effects of anthropogenic climate change on our planet,
2) Spur technological and scientific innovation that will benefit not only America, but the whole world, and,
3) Finally, work to decrease government control on the economics of climate change.

First and foremost, the duty of the federal government is not to push for huge grabs of portions of the economy, or overburdening economic engines and industry to the point of stagnation or atrophy, and certainly not imposing massive mandates that hurt job growth and cause wage stagnation. From the day this resolution was introduced by Representative Ocasio-Cortez and her group of far-left leaning comrades, this document has proven to be nothing but a power play for a movement to have more government control of industry.

Three of the major industries targeted are construction, transportation, and energy. These sizable sectors of our economy are worth trillions of dollars annually and cash ripe for government takeover to fund the endless list of socialist agenda items. For construction alone, the GND will cause a rise in costs to builders by requiring the undue burden of adding inefficient green energy technology to every project. In transportation, by trying to reduce CO2 emissions to net zero in the next 15 years, with no viable plan to transition from fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, millions of jobs hang in the balance from destruction of industries like trucking, aviation, and plastics manufacturing. By discounting nuclear and other forms of cheap and reliable power generation, the GND is relying on severely flawed and unreliable technologies like wind and solar to do the heavy lifting of maintaining a stable power grid for the next century. It’s a recipe for economic disaster. With this in mind, the GND has its origins in the same flawed thinking of the original New Deal.

The New Deal, the brain-child of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was designed to help spur growth of the US economy and grow jobs during the Great Depression. It was a massive intrusion by the federal government in the economic engines driving the country at the time.  In essence, Roosevelt tried his best to make the government the driver of the economy, and not the free market powers that innovate to survive. Its effects were disastrous.

The New Deal programs did far more damage to the economy and led to a protracted recovery from the downturn. Some programs of the New Deal were actually found to be unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. The biggest offender was the National Industrial Recovery Act, which would have allowed vast powers to have been bestowed upon the executive branch. During times of economic downturn and turmoil, you can see throughout history how certain parties will use the opportunity to power grab.

And that same desire to power grab, leads us to where we are with the Green New Deal. In the coming weeks of this blog series, I will explain further how this initiative by the far left is a power grab of the highest order. In other words, a way for the government to take control of industry through use of heartstring pulling and fear mongering under the cover of caring for the environment. Not to say we should not be stewards of the precious natural gifts we have been given, but this is beyond contemptable as a method for achieving fundamental economic and governmental change. As we journey through the details of the GND, towards the end of this series I will present a way forward for the country that protects our precious natural resources and environment, while simultaneously spurring innovation and economic growth without the government overreach.