Green New Deal: Great New Deal for Illegals
In the days following the unveiling of the Green New Deal, Democrats have been scrambling to make their proposal seem less than the socialist manifesto that it clearly is. Rather than admitting that the Green New Deal [GND] is a dictate, the Democrats pretend that the proposal is merely a list of suggestions that -- maybe, if we are in the mood and aren’t too busy; no pressure -- we can perhaps achieve.
Despite the most common descriptors from the left to describe the GND, it is neither “affordable” nor “realistic” but rather “aspirational.” To paraphrase Senator Cory Booker, the Green New Deal is “bold . . . like saving the world from the Nazis or flying to the moon."
It is rather odd how the same Democrats who were “too fiscally responsible” to allow the one-time expenditure of $5.7 billion dollars for "Trump’s border wall dream" would support spending more than $400 billion a year on a program for which “aspirational” is the kindest descriptor.
Perhaps the most prominent current defender of the Green New Deal is Cornell University Law School Professor Robert Hockett, an adviser to the resolution’s co-author Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Professor Hockett has achieved some recent notoriety for “fact-checking” Tucker Carlson on air by falsely saying Congresswoman Osasio-Cortez would “never” propose providing economic security for those unwilling to work, which she clearly did.
According to Professor Hockett, the GND does not issue requirements but rather merely gives the consumers additional options.
He says:
We’re really talking about expanding optionality here. We’re not talking about getting rid of anything. We’re talking about basically making it cost-effective to move into more modern forms of technology, more modern forms of production, which would then enable people to actually cost-effectively to transit to that stuff. We’re not talking about requiring anything or prohibiting anything.
In other words, according to Professor Hockett, the purpose of the Green New Deal is to merely do what the free market has always done, which is to seek to give the consumer better options. However, under the GND resolution, the government will use its force to make one of the options as undesirable as possible. This is all very reminiscent of the option Senator Obama once promised the coal industry, “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them."
Unfortunately, it appears Professor Hockett may not have not read the actual Green New Deal document, which states that “the goals described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) of paragraph (1) . . . should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization . . . that will require the following goals and projects.“ (Emphasis added.)
One of the listed goals required by the GND is “(C) meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.”
So clearly the GND both “requires” -- not “suggests” or “encourages” -- and prohibits the consumer from getting that big, white, gas guzzling Jaguar SUV with the panoramic sunroof he hopes to buy as soon as AACONS pays him enough money to do so. If it did, the Green New Deal would be derelict in meeting its requirement for 100% zero-emissions.
This unwillingness to be honest and forthcoming about the demands of the Green New Deal by supporters is troublesome. Despite being the one who tweeted a document that contained a promise for “Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work.” for example, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez subsequently accused Republicans of “circulating false versions” of the plan. This accusation was then followed by the claim from the Ocasio-Cortez office that the document tweeted by her that contained the “unwilling to work” language was an “unauthorized draft” leaked by a rogue staffer.
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez also said that the Green New Deal requires “massive government intervention” yet only hours later said that “one way the Right does try to mischaracterize what we’re doing as though it is some kind of massive government takeover.”
Clarity is clearly not a priority here. As Vox admits, “The appeal of the Green New Deal is in part how vague it is.”
[mks_pullquote align="left" width="300" size="24" bg_color="#000000" txt_color="#ffffff"]In all, the phrase “all people of the United States” is repeated seven times in the official Green New Deal resolution. The word “citizen” is not mentioned once. [/mks_pullquote]
Along these lines of deliberate vagueness, it is interesting to note that the Green New Deal lists a series of benefits for “all people of the United States.”
It says, for example, that it will provide “(i) high-quality health care; (ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing; (iii) economic security and (iv) clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature” to “all people of the United States.”
It adds that it will “provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States” and “create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States.”
It will also require -- not “make available” but “require” -- “resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities, so that all people of the United States may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization.”
In all, the phrase “all people of the United States” is repeated seven times in the official Green New Deal resolution. The word “citizen” is not mentioned once.
It would be foolish to assume that phrase “all people of the United States” is not meant to mean everyone who happens to be in the country -- even those who happen to be here in violation of our immigration laws -- rather than the people who are actual citizens of this country.
In fact, the Democrats have been subtly arguing that “all people of the United States” includes illegals for some time now; therefore, they conclude, those here illegally are entitled to the same rights and benefits as everyone else.
Although President Obama said in a 2009 joint address of Congress that the Obamacare “reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” for example, Obamacare has nonetheless been used to cover healthcare for illegals.
New York’s socialist mayor Bill de Blasio recently declared that “Everyone is guaranteed the right to health care, everyone” while pledging that “New York City will spend at least $100 million to ensure that undocumented immigrants and others who cannot qualify for insurance can receive medical treatment.”
In fact, according to Rep. Ocasio Cortez, anyone who is of Latino heritage is, in effect, an American regardless of their place of birth: “Because we are standing on Native land, and Latino people are descendants of Native people. And we cannot be . . . criminalized simply for our identity or our status.”
If anyone who is Latino is by definition among those considered to be included as “all people of the United States” and entitled to all the great benefits of the Green New Deal, then the approximately 600 million Latinos who currently live outside America in places like Honduras, Mexico, and Brazil are deserving of “high-quality health care; housing; economic security and clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature” courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
If all people of the United States is to mean all legal and illegal residents of the United States, as well perhaps as all Latinos worldwide, who exactly won't be eligible for Green New Deal goodies?
Democrats should be pressed to answer if their Green New Deal would include an expensive array of new benefits for Americans only, or will anyone who manages to sneak over our border or overstay their visa would be guaranteed housing, health care, and income regardless of their willingness to work.
The Democrats should not be allowed to continue their deliberate vagueness on this issue. The answer may very will determine the long-term survival of this nation, much more so than climate change.
--DK
[the_ad id="1664"]