What the heck is a “Green New Deal”?

Well, the partial government shutdown drags on. Today is day 33 – the longest shutdown in U.S. history. We’ve seen Speaker Pelosi uninvite President Trump to the State of the Union. We’ve seen President Trump counterpunch, and cancel Pelosi’s plane ride to the Middle East.

Over the weekend, we saw the President make a perfectly reasonable compromise proposal to give Democrats what they’ve been saying they’ve wanted for years, relief for the DACA/Dreamer folks in return for money for border security/ the Wall. The Dems said “forget it.”

Why? Because the Democrats are closely watching the polls that say President Trump is getting more of the blame for the Shutdown than they are. And that’s because President Trump made a key mistake early on when he said “I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck… I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down… I’m not going to blame you for it.” So Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer think they can continue to refuse to negotiate and pay very little political price for their refusal. And they may just be right.

So instead of banging our heads against the wall over the shutdown, I’d like to focus this week’s blog on one of the Democrats’ worst ideas in a long time – the so-called Green New Deal. It’s the brainchild of the new proudly-socialist congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s the youngest, least-experienced woman to ever be elected to Congress. But from the bated breath coverage she’s been getting from the mainstream press, she’s apparently smarter than all the rest of us.

Her Green New Deal reminded me of one of the five-year plans that would routinely be rolled out in the former Soviet Union. They always failed, and led to such cynicism among Soviet workers that there was a saying “they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” That wouldn’t work of course in a capitalist economy, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk hate capitalism, believing it’s immoral, and want to replace it with socialism. That’s pretty much what the Green New Deal is – even bigger government than we already have, a series of far-left proposals, and massive tax increases to pay for it all (well actually to pay for some of it, with the unpaid-for-parts just driving up our already staggering national debt.)

So what are these far-left proposals? Well, no more fossil fuels, at all – none. All to be magically replaced by renewable energy. Don’t worry about the hundreds of thousands of new jobs created as we’ve become a net-energy exporter in recent years. The Dems who support this radical agenda sure don’t.

Although another part of their radical plan says – jobs for everyone. A government guaranteed job, and a minimum wage of $15 per hour. And Obamacare doesn’t go far enough. Even Medicare For All doesn’t go far enough. Single payer universal health care for everyone.

How are we gonna pay for all of this? Just raise federal income tax rates to 70% – for a start. And they might have to go up from there. After all, as Democrat Julian Castro reminded us when he announced his candidacy for the presidency recently, during WWII the top tax rate was 94%. So what do people have to complain about if tax rates are only 70%? After all, think of all the additional free stuff the government will be able to give away.

How will the Dems attempt to get their radical new agenda passed into law? I’m glad you asked that question. In the House, which Democrats now control, they are setting up a new Select Committee on Climate Change. They’ll plot and scheme and put all the details together there, then hope to pass this so-called Green New Deal in the House. If they win the Senate and Presidency in the next election, they can then actually pass their socialist agenda into law. Democratic Presidential candidates like Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro are already paying homage to the Green New Deal, so we better take this reckless proposal very seriously before it’s too late.

Why? Because in my view the Green New Deal would cripple the economy, throw hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people out of work, add multiple trillions of dollars to the national debt, grow government exponentially, and raise taxes to confiscatory levels.

So count me as a NO.

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