Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (OAC),
Sen. Ed Markley and their fellow Green Dealers may be in their ascendency. Their
Feb. 7 introduction of the Green New Deal (GND) certainly got the media’s
attention. So much so that it was promptly designated another key litmus test that all Democrats vying
for the 2020 presidential nomination must judge. How many Dem candidates are
there now? It seems like at least 23; with the list including Pete Buttigieg
[mayor of Ft. Wayne, IN] but at this moment it’s merely 13 and sure to rise.
After Medicare for All appeared at
the top of candidates’ litmus tests several weeks ago, it’s now just basic blue
and the GND now basks as uppermost. These litmus tests are being tossed at
candidates as each new “hot topic” newly emerges and the media decides it’s one
that candidates must instantaneously adopt or reject. Unfortunately, most
candidates readily take the bait before understanding what they’ve signed on
to. These repeated tests must make each candidate feel like they’re back in
high school. Ah, the good ol’ days.
Green Dealers like OAC seem to believe
that shouting from the proverbial tippy-top of endangered redwood trees, combined with a fervent belief that they’re
holding a royal flush of solutions, is the best way to change laws. Others,
including the many more taciturn Democrats, likely disagree. OAC hopes the GND
manifesto will rearrange everyone’s priorities, now. Why; because she has
gladly taken the scepter of lead spokesperson for the capital “P” Progressive
clan at the capital “C” US Capitol and beyond. She also sees herself as savior
of the truly environmentally righteous (or is it leftous) across their much-expanded
purview. This expansion comes from the nature of progressivism.
Progressivism is progressive. Over
time it seeks ever larger moral advance. If progressives have their way, the
list of things considered unequal, unjust and unworthy will broaden, as the
scope of the GND’s “environmental” agenda has swelled. This can be a good, but.
Here’s a recent example of progressivism’s progressiveness: Additional New York
City regulatory guidelines to be released this week will give legal recourse to
individuals who have been harassed, punished or fired because of the style of
their hair. NYC will henceforth ban discrimination based on an individual’s hair
style, which will now be considered racial discrimination.
Because I live way outside the DC
beltway, I wasn’t aware of the GND’s initial rounds of formulation, based on
gathering opinions of experts and stakeholders. There were some discussions,
right? If so, it’s not obvious. Instead, it appears OAC and Markley couldn’t
and didn’t say no to any progressive idea that’s somehow connected to an
improved “environment” for needful people, especially workers. Beyond decarbonizing
the entire US economy in 11 years, the GND’s extra-environmental commandments,
er objectives include the government being responsible for:
·
guaranteed
jobs, with living, sustainable wages and full benefits for all workers, including
folks who have been unable or unwilling to work;
·
affordable,
adequate and energy-efficient housing
for all;
·
universal,
high-quality health care provided by a single-payer;
·
competitive
economic markets not clouded by nasty monopolies and oligopolies; and
·
high-quality,
free public college tuition for all.
In other words, the GND comes in many varieties of green that
will cost lots of green; likely over $40 trillion during the next decade. And these multiple, herculean goals must
be accomplished by 2030, only a few proverbial ticks of the governmental clock
to entirely revamp the world’s largest economy. Sir Thomas More, the creator of
utopian literature 500 years ago, would be impressed with the GND.
Advocates of the GND, being fantasists, are insisting that
no trade-offs will be needed nor sacrifices incurred in order to satisfy their
manifesto’s objectives. Indeed, AOC has stated, “The question isn’t how will we pay for it, but what is the cost of
inaction, and what will we do with our new shared prosperity created by the
investments in the Green New Deal.” [Emphasis added.]
She’s not worried about how to pay for these grand
objectives perhaps because progressives like her are thoroughly at one with
emerging Modern Macroeconomic Theory
(MMT). MMT posits that sizeable government deficit spending, which increases
the nation’s public debt, isn’t a concern at all. The government can keep
printing Benjamins 24/7 as long as inflation doesn’t rise to an unpleasant
level.
Fiscal irony is very much alive and well in Washington.
MMT’s semi-magical leftish thinking is completely in line with solidly-right Republican
conservatives who happily passed their unfunded 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
that’s raised the US debt to historically high levels. This year’s federal
budget deficit will be nearly $1
trillion. The 2017 tax law revealed Repubs to be hyper-hypocritical deficit
scolds. They condemn “excessive” government expenditures only when it involves Democratic policy, not their own.
Let’s look at the GND’s principal
environmental objective, rapid decarbonization of our $20.7 trillion economy. I
spent the majority of my career working to promote and assess energy efficiency
programs and policies. I’m all in with a greener America. The GND’s objective
of requiring the entire nation to produce 100% of its energy from renewable
sources and produce net zero carbon emissions by 2030 is as astonishing as it
is realistically unattainable. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC)
has previously and ambitiously proposed to cut global emissions just by 40% to
60% by 2030, and hopefully get to net zero by 2050. How does OAC and her Green
Dealers propose do to this in 20 less years than the IPPC? They never say;
that’s for others to stress about.
For reference, in 2017 (a baker’s
dozen years before 2030) just 18% of total US power generation was produced from
renewable energy sources, an all-time high. In the nine years between 2008 and
2017 this renewable share of power generation doubled, an impressive
accomplishment. The GND’s goal for 100% of US energy use, not just power
generation (electric power accounts for about 16% of total energy use), to be produced
from renewable sources, would require renewable energy to increase by 550% over
the next 13 years. The Green Dealers leave reality by the side of their
utopian, all electric-vehicle throughways to the future.
I have no doubts that were only one
of the GND’s lofty objectives to be undertaken; it could certainly benefit us
all and would create many prosperous winners in that endeavor. But there
also would be losers. For example, the vast majority of workers
in the coal, oil, gas and petrochemical industries (1.44 million people, over
half of which are blue-collar workers) would be out of jobs. Sure, job
retraining is clearly called for, but in the undefined interim that can last
for a while in job retraining, such workers would be SOL. They are not likely
to be happy GND campers, nor would their employers. But no worries; each of
them would be offered a government-guaranteed job.
Eliminating the internal
combustion engine as the transportation sector’s motive power, another GND
goal, would likewise lead to numerous lost high-paying manufacturing jobs and large
economic dislocation in the short- to medium-term. Transportation of people and
goods accounts for 29% of US total
energy use. The auto industry is one of the largest in the US, contributing
about 3% to the US GDP. Three percent seems like a small number, but it works
out to $620 billion in cumulative yearly economic activity. That’s not a small
number to trifle with. In 2018, US electric vehicles (EVs) sales reached an
all-time high of 361,300, accounting for 2.1% of total vehicle sales. Getting
to 100% EVs in 11 years boggles my mind’s engine.
As always, trade-offs will be
present if and when the government begins investing in GND’s vast decarbonization.
Any and all trade-offs have been denied by the Green Dealers, together with
dismissing the substantial costs of attaining the manifesto’s goals. Such
denials weaken OAC’s Green Dealing in the jungles of Congress and make the
prospect of political victory much smaller. She might not care.
However, if AOC et al. really do
want to create actual legislation based on the GND, then it’s incumbent on them
to transparently develop specific plans for how
the GND objectives could be met by 2030; how
these objectives can overcome inevitable challenges; and what trade-offs, if any, the Green Dealers are willing to make to
secure decarbonization within 11 years. That process is unexciting and tedious compared to commandment creation.
Maybe OAC is playing a longer game.
Fundamentally, I suspect the Green Dealers don’t view their GND as a basis for
actual legislation. In this sense it’s worthwhile remembering that Nancy Pelosi
has already agreed to step down as Speaker by 2022. After all, the GND will
require unprecedented and very big
expansions of federal, state and local government programs, oversight and
regulation. This is entirely consistent with the precepts of the few elected democratic
socialists, like AOC and Sen. Bernie Sanders. This future is not consistent for
the majority of current Congressional Democrats. Speaker Pelosi has given the
GND a “seal clap,” hardly unequivocal support. But who knows what the future
will bring.
With all its practical and
political challenges I imagine AOC and other acolytes see their GND more as an edict
for progressives of every stripe to rally around their maypole, not as a summarized
playbook for real legislation.
Any specific legislation that
might have a chance of becoming law coming through Speaker Pelosi and other “establishment
Democrats” will elicit cries of derision from progressives. Because Democrat decrees
that could actually pass the House will be instantly declared limited,
insufficient and unworthy by Green Dealers. They have already claimed the very
highest green ground, even if it’s realistically and politically impossible. They’ve
now planted their flag, the GND, atop an ever-green Mt. Everest, without having
to worry about actually climbing it.
It will be a long time before AOC and
Green Dealers might gain enough votes in the House to pass her GND. I’m not
holding my exhaled CO2-filled breath.
Nevertheless, she has three million Twitter followers right now who have
rallied behind her and probably the manifesto. To these devotees, the GND and
its 6 commandments are gospel for achieving an alleged more perfect and far greener
future. Alas, I’m not one of them; I’m too pragmatic.
