Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal Could Cost Every US Household $65,000 a Year
Deal could end up costing $93 trillion over a decade, according to American Action Forum
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) Green New Deal could end up costing $93 trillion over a decade, according to a report from American Action Forum (AAF).
The figure estimates that each American household would pay $36,100 to $65,300 per year to meet the Green New Deal’s goals, the AAF report claims.
The deals goals include “net-zero” emissions, guaranteed jobs, universal health care, widespread high-speed rail and upgrading every building.
This means that the Green New Deal could cost 63 percent of the median to nearly 106 percent of the earnings of the average American household each year.
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In 2017, the U.S. household income was s $61,372, government figures say.
But what would it cost to achieve the Green New Deal’s main goals?
Eliminating emissions from the electric grid is estimated to cost $5.4 trillion over ten years.
“Greening” the U.S. transportation system comes with a price tag of $2.7 trillion, including building out high-speed rail.
According to The Daily Caller: Universal health care, on the other hand, would add an estimated $36 trillion in costs to the Green New Deal over a decade — this was included in the proposal despite having nothing to do with the environment.
“The Green New Deal is clearly very expensive,” wrote AAF policy analysts, including economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and adviser to former Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Holtz-Eakin is now AAF’s president.
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey to introduce Green New Deal resolutions in early February, calling for restoring the U.S. economy to get greenhouse gas emissions to “net-zero” within ten years.
The Green New Deal will be very expensive – our initial estimates are summarized below - @DJHEakin. https://t.co/O8KgIzfy5q pic.twitter.com/2iXzpCRFH9
— American Action Forum (@AAF) February 25, 2019
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The resolution also asks for a slew of welfare programs, from federal job guarantees to universal health care, and for the government to concentrate on “repairing historic oppression” of certain groups of people.
Ocasio-Cortez said the resolution, though non-binding, was needed to take global warming seriously.
In a live stream to supporters Sunday night, Ocasio-Cortez said global warming was “going to kill us” if nothing is done.
Republicans oppose the Green New Deal, seeing it as a massive expansion of government to control almost every aspect of American life.
“The American Action Forum’s analysis shows that the Green New Deal would bankrupt the nation,” Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso said in a statement.
“Promising new technologies like advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, and carbon utilization hold the key to significant emissions reductions,” said Barrasso, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Democrats are divided on support for the Green New Deal, despite support from every Senate Democrat running for president in 2020.
