J Robert Smith
- Aug. 22, 2019
- 2 min read
WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has released a $16.3 trillion climate plan that builds on the Green New Deal and calls for the United States to move to renewable energy across the economy by 2050 and declare climate change a national emergency.
— USA Today, August 22, 2019
QUICK TAKE
We’re in crisis, thanks to “manmade” global warming. Or so preaches Bernie Sanders. He’s joined by the left, Democrats, the MSM, and big swaths of the establishment. Bernie’s read-between-the-lines argument: Big government control of the economy and our lives, along with tens of trillions of dollars in new spending, is necessary to avert global disaster.
But there’s a lurking cynicism here. Compassionate climate concern isn’t the real driver in Bernie’s deal or the Green New Deal. Both are statist ploys to impose big government leftism on a free nation, effectively ending liberty. The left is about power, no dispute.
Failure to reduce our carbon footprint, claim Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, means the end of the world – quite literally. For Beto, it’s a 10-year clock. For AOC, it’s a dozen years. If we’re doomed that soon, let’s just party. If you don’t care to party, then repent!
Let’s apply the green eye-shade test to Bernie’s extremist agenda. In other words, let’s add up the dollars.
Bernie’s math: $16 trillion for his climate scam atop the estimated $93 trillion for the Green New Deal over a decade. Reason estimates that Medicare for All, which Bernie champions, could cost $40 trillion. Throw in a “modest” $1.6 trillion to cancel college loan debt. Grand total (10 years): $150.6 trillion… in new spending. The national debt is already $22.5 trillion and growing.
And those are just the highlights of Bernie’s binge spending proposals. The U.S. GDP is $19.7 trillion annually, as of 2017. Bernie’s proposals would suck an average of $15 trillion in new costs annually from the economy. But who’s counting? The earth hangs in the balance!
In another era, Bernie’s lunacy would never be entertained, outside of communist party cell meetings and whacko green conclaves. Today, millions listen seriously to this old socialist spout lunacy. Beware.
What do you think? Weigh in!
