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The Green New Deal Is the Progressive Version of ‘Build That Wall!’
Last week, long-serving Senator Dianne Feinstein greeted a group, composed primarily of young adults and children, in her office to discuss the proposed Green New Deal. This legislation is sponsored by the newest face of the burgeoning progressive movement in the United States, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Feinstein’s colleague Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. This plan is an aggressive legislative proposal that looks to tackle both climate change and income inequality in one fell swoop. Recent analysis by the centrist (-to-right-leaning) group American Action Forum estimates this plan would cost Americans $51 — $93 trillion. This breaks down to $36,000 to $65,000 per American, per year in new taxes. However, this bill wasn’t written to become law nor serve as a viable solution to the very real, very imminent dangers we face. No, this is meant to be a dead-on-arrival legislative package signaling to voters which Democrats are worth supporting and which should slink away, unremembered, into the night.
Unfortunately for Sen. Feinstein, she is firmly in the slink away camp. Her opposition to this symbolic legislative manifesto in favor of her own, more modest, proposal that (she believes) has a chance of becoming law is to blame. The draft of her proposal has differences and similarities to the GND…
