What Is the “Green New Deal?”

Column 2019-8 (2/25/19)

There are many versions of the green new deal (GND). Some of them contain similar ideas. If I tried to describe all of them it would be a contest. Would it drive me crazy before you quit reading?

I chose one example to review. It reads like a four year olds’ letter to Santa. (I probably should apologize for insulting the four year old.) Four year olds don’t worry about how Santa will do it. They just know he can. Such thinking by adults can be dangerous.

The GND is a wish list that ignores reality and gives almost no consideration to where the wealth to implement it would come from. It also gives no consideration to the impact of diverting wealth from its current uses.

It starts with what it calls “The economic bill of rights.” It proceeds with a list of entitlements that somebody would have to pay for. The first entitlement reads as follows: “The right to employment through a Full Employment Program that will create 25 million jobs by implementing a nationally funded, but locally controlled direct employment initiative replacing unemployment offices with local employment offices offering public sector jobs which are ‘stored’ in job banks in order to take up any slack in private sector employment.”

Government generally fails when it tries to create 25 real jobs. Twenty-five million might be a bit of a stretch. Jobs in themselves aren’t important. It is the wealth created by the jobs that counts. With a real job the employee produces enough wealth to cover his pay check and the other costs of employing him. A job that fails to do this is merely an excuse for issuing a welfare check.

One of the results they claim will be achieved is: “We will end unemployment in America once and for all by guaranteeing a job at a living wage for every American willing and able to work.“ I guess it is left to Santa to create the paying jobs. The concept of storing jobs in a job bank completely baffles me. Do the jobs have to be freeze dried for storage?

The wish list continues with, among other things: 1) the right to a living wage, 2) Medicare for all, 3) tuition-free, quality, federally funded, local controlled public education system from pre-school through college, 4) The right to decent affordable housing, including an immediate halt to all foreclosures and evictions, 5) The right to accessible and affordable utilities – heat, electricity, phone, Internet, and public transportation – through democratically run, publicly owned utilities that operate at cost, not for profit.

One thing they didn’t touch is, Who will be enslaved to pay the bills? Also, “federal funding and local control” is the impossible dream. The golden rule still applies. He who has the gold makes the rules, even if he stole the gold. And, all wealth is created locally somewhere before government takes it.

Of course, the GND draws its name from Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s. Many still believe the New Deal ended the great depression. Close analysis of events of the 1930s and 1940s show that the New Deal prolonged the depression by more than a decade.

How dangerous is the GND? The answer depends on whether it is implemented, or not. If it is a passing fad that dies on the vine, it will be relatively harmless. If it is even partially put into practice it would be an unmitigated disaster that would achieve almost none of it advocates’ objectives. Some of the goals may be desirable. The means for implementation are pure fantasy.

So far I have covered only the lead in to the main agenda item “green energy.” They want to destroy the energy supply system that powers our survival and prosperity. They promise to replace it with something never tried. More about that next time.

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Copyright 2019

Albert D. McCallum