Republicans’ Green New Deal-Lite Is Political Suicide

Republicans’ Green New Deal-Lite Is Political Suicide
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) speaks during a news conference to announce the "Green Real Deal" in Washington on April 3, 2019. Zach Gibson/Getty Images
James Taylor
Updated:

When socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) formally introduced a congressional resolution for a “Green New Deal,” Republicans were handed a powerful, unexpected political gift. Leave it to weak-minded congressional Republicans to find a way to screw it up.

The Green New Deal would re-make America via a “new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal.” Those aren’t just empty words. The free-market American Action Forum conducted an economic analysis of the Green New Deal and found it would cost as much as $94 trillion, or approximately $780,000 per U.S. household. The green-energy components alone would cost as much as $12.3 trillion.