New Green Deal – ThisIsCommonSense.org

A funny thing happened on the way to voting on the Democrats’ Green New Deal (GND). With ‘earth in the balance,’ the proposal for fixing climate change — and so much more! — was granted its first procedural vote in the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate.

It failed, 0-57.

Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the Senate sponsor, along with 41 other Democrats* and independent Bernie Sanders, voted “present” to protest what he called “sabotage,” claiming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “wants to silence your voice.”

Au contraire! McConnell longed to hear Democrats sing the bill’s praises — loud, proud, and on the record.

After the vote, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) absurdly made the opposite accusation: Republicans were “climate delaying . . . costing us lives + destroying communities.”

Meanwhile, “If the Green New Deal came up for a vote in the Democrat-controlled House,” USA Today reports, “it would have trouble passing.”

“It’s a list of aspirations,” says Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who does not plan to bring it to a vote. Though Democrats want to address climate change, the speaker points out that the “bill has many things that have nothing to do with climate.”

Rep. Elaine Luria, (D-Va.) echoes Pelosi: “[T]he Green New Deal is aspirational.” Rep. Sean Casten, (D-Ill.) adds, “The aspirations of the Green New Deal are great.”**

But is the GND something “great” to which Americans should aspire?

Only if they yearn for government-monopolized healthcare, free college tuition, micro-management of the economy, and government providing everyone a job, except those who don’t want one . . . who would get a guaranteed income, regardless.

I aspire to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In the Senate, three Democrats — Sens. Doug Jones (Ala.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — and independent Sen. Angus King (Maine) joined all 53 Republicans in voting No.

** All four House co-chairs of the New Democrat Coalition’s Climate Change Task Force — Casten and Luria as well as Don Beyer, (D-Va.) and Susan Wild, (D-Pa.) — have come out in opposition to the GND.

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Nancy Pelosi, New Green Deal, aspirations,

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Can we blame U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), really?

A decade of quantitative easing, along with trillion-dollar annual deficits run up recently by congressional Republicans, have paved a debt-ridden road upon which she hopes her massive Green New Deal (GND) might glide.

We can derisively point to the now-withdrawn FAQ, which the congresswoman’s staff “accidentally” posted on the Web and sent out to reporters. It was “unfinished,” and “erroneously” said the GND would be “guaranteeing . . . Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.“

But of course, read the actual totalitarian-esque House Resolution — calling for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era” and labeling it “a historic opportunity” — and tell me the silly FAQ isn’t accurate.

The GND promises to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs . . . provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people . . . and . . . counteract systemic injustices.” It must, of course, after wiping out tens of millions of jobs in private health insurance (2.6 million) and fossil fuels (10 million).

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been so kind as to announce he will bring the GND to a vote in the Senate. Put Senators on record. And more than 100 Democrats in Congress, including four declared presidential candidates — Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — have endorsed the Green New Deal resolution.

Give AOC her due. She has brought fresh young energy to old-fashioned socialism.

And leading Democrats out of the shadows.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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