When Harris and Ocasio-Cortez first introduced an idea for a
Green New Deal (GND), it really did not seem as though that initiative would
gain much traction. Why? Perhaps solely because of its astronomical
costs. Or, maybe an idea of a Green New
Deal, something to attain 100% clean energy is just unfathomable. Seemingly the tasks necessary to achieve such
a goal one would not be able to calculate; and, without getting an idea of what
your tasks are you would be incapable to estimate a cost.
So, a study, conducted by the Competitive Enterprise
Institute (CEI), examined a wide swath of data to estimate how changing to the Democrat’s
proposed initiative they call the GND would affect an average household in five
representative states (Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and
Pennsylvania). Transforming energy
consumption under the GND would cost the average household minimally $70,000 during
GND’s first year rollout, and an additional quarter-million dollars total over
the next five years.
Within the first year of implementing the GND, the average
household in Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania would
incur at least $70,000 in expenses followed the next year by approximately
$45,000 in annual expenses for the subsequent two to five years and over
$37,000 in year six and subsequent years.
The study found that Pennsylvania would face over $2
quadrillion (that is two with fifteen zeros) in costs for upgrading
residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. Florida would incur a $1.4 quadrillion price
tag and New Hampshire would face $102.8 trillion in costs.
New Mexico and Alaska would see (respectively) increases of
$352.8 trillion and $533.4 trillion. Our
national debt is currently over $22,555,000,000,000 (that is twenty-two
trillion five hundred fifty-five billion dollars) and estimated to reach 31 trillion
dollars by 2023.
Though Ocasio-Cortez downplays cost concerns and mocks
conservatives that caution against the GND the Green New Deal's costs will be
astronomical.
Provisions for the GND are so vast and vague the list of
potential programs necessary to implement the GND is limited by the capacity of
legislators to imagine a new government program. Such limitations render it nearly impossible
to calculate a cost for the GND in its entirety with any amount of credibility.
Both CEI and the Heritage Foundation find the Green New Deal's
energy goals alone would cost households insurmountable sums. Another source - the American Action Forum
(AAF) – finds the GND could have initial startup costs as high as $94 trillion.
In the House, the Republican Study Committee pushed a resolution
that declared proposal of the GND a "thinly veiled" attempt to usher
in a socialist society and would violate the nation's core principles.
Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, recently
made public the GND was not spawned as an effort to deal with climate change; instead,
to change-the-economy thing which supports Republican claims the GND is no more
than a socialist takeover of the economy of the United States of America.
An industrial and economic and national social economic mobilization
on a scale such as this has not seen since World War II and Roosevelt’s New
Deal which pales by comparison. Goals for the GND call for the government to
upgrade buildings and power sources to achieve 100 percent clean energy.
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