The Green New Deal would cost a bundle. Here are cost estimates of only some of its provisions.
A recent post looked at the dramatic tax hikes associated with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s (AOC) so-called “Green New Deal.” But tax hikes constitute only part of what needs to be said about this proposal. It contains so much ambition – on climate as well as social issues – that it will cost a bundle, a lot more money than any extra taxes on the wealthy can raise. Those costs need the attention of Washington, certainly, but also of every citizen, whatever his or her political persuasion.
As yet, AOC has offered nothing definite enough to support precise cost calculations. In point of fact, her “Green New Deal” involves little definite beyond a list of aspirations. One could not even properly describe it as a proposal. The only planning for the future involves off loading to what she calls a “select committee” the “how’s” and “when’s” of meeting her goals. Until that committee forms and puts specifics to AOC’s dreams, if it ever does, none of the usual government services have a way to estimate costs. Still, There is enough to attach broad estimates on the expenses involved in AOC’s “Green New Deal.” Here are figures for just some of its goals:
Just these six of AOC’s long list of aspirations would then roughly cost some $2.5 trillion a year. Since Washington’s 2018 budget put spending at $4.5 trillion, the Deal would effectively increase federal spending by a touch over half again. That is a hefty price tag, considerably more than the estimated $700 billion a year that would emerge from AOC’s proposal to raise the maximum tax rate to 70%. To her credit, she has admitted as much, indicating that her “plan” would also require more debt and “printing money” as well. That much debt would, of course, have its own ill effects, while “printing” money at the necessary rate would invite inflation. AOC also seems to consider government equity in these ventures a financing alternative. She shows some confusion here. Equity ownership hardly constitutes an alternative-financing plan.
