Ocasio-Cortez: New Green Deal Is Not A ‘Massive Government Takeover’…But I Also ‘Have No Problem Saying That’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has finally unveiled her New Green Deal. And it’s an ungodly left-wing mess that is scarce on details and sanity. There’s no price tag, which means there’s no data on how we can gauge the massive amounts of taxes that will have the be levied to pay for this acid-trip into Venezuelan ruin. The plan itself calls for a complete transfer away from fossil fuels within a decade, upgrading every building in the country, and oddly, going after cows and their release of methane. The Wall Street Journal’sKimberley Strassel took this whole plan behind a barn and shot it, noting that it’s this ruinously expensive and un-serious, but also an egregious intrusion into Americans’ everyday lives.

“Gas in the tank” is a fossil fuel. Ban young people. https://t.co/KKc24MKBLu
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) February 7, 2019

Where do the people live after AOC levels their buildings?
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) February 7, 2019

.@AOC’s Green New Deal will provide ”economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.”

This is an actual direct quote. pic.twitter.com/pTBRRB3Z94
— The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) February 7, 2019

Source: thin air https://t.co/iBAWzofcrk
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) February 7, 2019

Are the FAQs still down on AOC's website?
— RBe (@RBPundit) February 8, 2019

Even The Washington Post’s Meagan McArdle said that while the plan might be a nice insight to a cleaner future (I totally disagree), she also said that as an immediate blueprint—it’s totally insane. Yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez’s office took down their FAQ page. And it has remained shut down since then:

The most bizarre passage in the Green New Deal is the admission that after they've junked every car in America, replaced every power plant, and renovated every single building within the space of a decade, they might not get around to slaughtering all the cows by their deadline.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) February 7, 2019

Not making this up: "We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years
because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and
airplanes that fast"
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) February 7, 2019

The Green New Deal is nice vision of where the United States might try to go someday. But as an actual blueprint for the immediate future, it’s lunatic. And no matter how technically or morally sound your goals may be, as an opening political message, “We’re nuts!” is neither efficient, nor state-of-the-art.

Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute tried to calculate the costs. It wasn’t pretty.

Trying to cost out the Green New Deal

Before getting to "green policies" there is a call for
-Single payer ($32T)
-Jobs guarantee ($7T)
-What looks like UBI for poor ($5T+)
-Education, family leave, job training, retirement security, etc ($2T)

So $46T *before* Green (1/
— Brian Riedl (@Brian_Riedl) February 8, 2019

How do we cost

-Replacing 250M gas vehicles? ($7T?)
-Killing most of 200k aircraft?
-Replacing military jets?
-High speed rail everywhere?
-Upgrade/replace 120M buildings?
-All the R&D? Installing renewables everywhere?

No idea…but must be heading towards $100 trillion. (2/
— Brian Riedl (@Brian_Riedl) February 8, 2019

I have been costing out legislative proposals for 18 years. This stuff cannot even be costed out. Its basically incalculable.
— Brian Riedl (@Brian_Riedl) February 8, 2019

As background, CBO projects a total GDP of $263 trillion over the next decade -- of which about $75 trillion is already earmarked for federal, state ,and local government spending.

So that leaves $188 trillion of private GDP available for everything else.
— Brian Riedl (@Brian_Riedl) February 8, 2019

So, how does Ocasio-Cortez respond to the criticism that this is a massive government takeover? Well, she says that it isn’t, but then admits that it is hours later. You just can’t make this stuff up?

Ocasio-Cortez Defends Green New Deal: Critics Wrong to Call it a 'Massive Government Takeover' (VIDEO) https://t.co/SSfkTchTVH pic.twitter.com/DdnrgHeFDL
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 7, 2019