So I recently discussed the standoff between Dianne Feinstein and some school children and I hinted at the idea that I'm not fully behind a green new deal. I would not say I'm completely opposed to it, but as per the post I wrote the other day, I believe that there are only so many programs we can pragmatically pursue at once and I believe that there are opportunity costs associated with whatever program we choose. The green new deal is likely going to be a very expensive program. I am not sure of the exact costs, but if I had to guess, it would cost trillions per year. This makes it a direct competitor to the proposal I champion, which is the universal basic income. Quite frankly we cannot afford both. While I believe we have room to expand our safety nets to be more Scandiavian in size and scope, there are limits and one of these proposals will put us in line with Scandinavian countries spending wise, which I see near the realistic maximum a market based economy can bear. Past that we literally have a much bigger public sector in our economy than a private sector, and this basically would inhibit growth and move us toward a nationalized economy similar to what you would expect from a failed communist state. No, just no. I am not a supporter of that. My utopian ideals must be tempered with a reasonable amount of pragmatism, and I realize we cannot have it all. That said, we must decide what to prioritize.
The green new deal sounds compelling in some ways. It would completely change how our economy works to make it more green, while providing jobs and economic security for all. These are not bad aspirations. My key concern is the approach, and considering how I'm weighing the concept of the proposal against a UBI, my standards are quite high and I honestly would rather have a UBI.
First of all, I don't consider the green aspects of the green new deal to be pragmatic. The program is ambitious, too ambitious, and the initial goals put forward by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez seem completely unfeasible to me. She supported things like retrofitting every building in the entire country to be more green, which I just can't see happening. Many buildings in the US are quite old, and it's already burdensome to mess with the infrastructure. Whenever someone installs a gas furnace in my neighborhood they dig up the street and cause tons of disruption. Imagine that times several hundred million in the next 10 years. This is madness. She wants to replace all heaters with electric to get rid of all fossil fuels, which may raise the heating costs for many Americans. She wants to basically make so much high speed rail it makes air travel obsolete, but high speed rail is, in and of itself, quite expensive, and making enough for the entire country and to accommodate the volume necessary for air travel...I just can't see it working. They want to get rid of nuclear power, which I see as one of the most reliable forms of power out there and is far better than fossil fuels, even if not perfect. Even worse, if you trust Andrew Yang's assessment on it, which I see as realistic, the US only produces 15% of carbon emissions so say we implement all of these things to completely remove the carbon impacts of the US, well, we still have the other 85% of the world to worry about. So on the green front, we're basically pushing these extremely expensive high scale solutions that will ultimately have a marginal effect on the problem if they're even feasible at all. I mean I hate to say it, but I think we are screwed on climate change and while I do support mitigation where practical, the green new deal approach seems more new deal than green in practice.
Then you have to look at the economic front. It basically pushes FDR's second bill of rights and tries to guarantee healthcare, job training, and jobs to all Americans. This isn't bad, I definitely support universal healthcare and job training and education. I support many overhauls to our labor laws to raise wages and make working conditions better. But I will say what I've always said here, JOBS ARE NOT THE ANSWER. So say we spent trillions creating jobs. Okay, for the next decade as we improve our infrastructure that makes sense. What will we do then? Create more work for the sake of creating more work? Will tax payers be willing to pay more money (and I'll get to funding later, that's a doozy) to the tune of hundreds of billions or trillions a year for the purpose of creating jobs so others can have a paycheck? Why not just cut out the middleman and give everyone a paycheck like with UBI? I am not totally opposed to the economic aspirations here, but I do think they're a bit outdated. Guaranteed jobs made sense when FDR suggested it, but even then it wasn't perfect. We need to also consider where these jobs will be located. The key issue with the economy in some ways in terms of jobs is some communities are just...dead. Obviously they're not gonna create a job for every displaced coal miner or factory worker living in Appalachia or the burnt out cities in the rust belt. And honestly, will people necessarily be qualified to do the jobs at hand? Infrastructure jobs are dangerous and generally are only good for young people with good physical strength, stamina, and coordination. Older people and even some younger people may not be physically fit for these jobs. That said, the logistics of how this would work just seem mind boggling to me. It sounds nice on paper, but wouldn't it be better just to cut everyone a check?
Finally, AOC, while I respect her in a lot of ways and see her as young Bernie, doesnt seem to be experienced enough to know how to pay for this. I already criticized Yang's proposal and tried to improve it, but now I'm criticizing this. AOC wants to use modern monetary theory to just inject money into the economy, which is a terrible idea. Even if MMT is true, and I do believe it has merit, you're gonna devalue the currency by an insane amount to pay for it, perhaps even creating hyperinflation.Yeah, this is just a terrible idea.
Look, I love the left. I love the upcoming political revolution that realigns the parties and moves us left as a country. We need solutions to problems that have been ignored for far too long. But we have to be smart about it. The green new deal would cost a ton of money and has impractical aspirations on the front of curbing climate change. It's a lot of money with diminishing goals. On the economic front it's better and I like the idea we're finally discussing guaranteed livings in a market economy, but honestly, I'm more in support of Andrew Yang's UBI proposal. I think it's better just to cut everyone a check and help them find their own happiness rather than create a vast job creating bureaucracy that might make sense in the next decade but will likely become less and less relevant beyond that. Finally, there doesn't seem to be a realistic proposal to pay for it all. I'm not saying we can't. I mean, if we can fund a UBI which I believe we can, we can fund this. But the proponents are relying on deficit spending instead and this is just a terrible idea. Honestly, I'm not fully opposed to a green new deal in practice, and if Bernie is the nominee for president and pushes one I will support it and hope for the best. Still, I do not see it as the best approach and would rather support a UBI proposal like Andrew Yang supports over this.
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