Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
The Green New Deal could cost up to $93 trillion over a decade, according to a new report by the right-leaning American Action Forum (AAF).
That comes to an estimated cost of $36,100 to $65,300 per American household per year to meet the Green New Deal’s goals, AAF reported Monday. Those goals include “net-zero” emissions, widespread high-speed rail, guaranteed jobs, universal health care and upgrading every building.
Thus, the potential cost of the Green New Deal could range from 63 percent of the median to nearly 106 percent of what the average household earns a year. The median U.S. household income was $61,372 in 2017, according to government figures.
AAF looked at what it would cost to achieve the Green New Deal’s main goals. For example, eliminating emissions from the electric grid is estimated to cost $5.4 trillion over 10 years. Also, “greening” the U.S. transportation system could cost up to $2.7 trillion, including building out high-speed rail.
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 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
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walks away from the front of the White House with her deputy communication director Anika Legrand-Wittich (L) in Washington, U.S., Feb. 12, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
“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 overhauling the U.S. economy to get greenhouse gas emissions to “net-zero” within 10 years.
The resolution also calls for a slew of welfare programs, from federal job guarantees to universal health care, and for the government to focus on “repairing historic oppression” of certain groups of people. (RELATED: Washington Post Rips Green New Deal: ‘We Can’t Afford Bad Ideas’)
Ocasio-Cortez said the resolution, though non-binding, was needed to take global warming seriously. In a livestream 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.
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Eliminating emissions from the power supply using motensalt Small Modular Reactors would cots roughly
$800 billion. As follows – the U.S.requires 460 Gigawatts of capacity.We already have 92 GWs of nuclear and 30 GW of hydro. That leaves 338 GWs from molten salt reactors. 500 MW reactors cost roughly $1.25 billion each.
We will require 1590 reactors, total cost roughly $800 billion. Costs of power will decrease, as molten salt reactors can produce power with a levelized cost of 4 cents per kWhr. Reactors wil pay for themselves over their extended lifespans of 60 plus years.
But you need to get it done in 10 years. That might up the cost to … what?
$812 billion or 40 trillion?
But if you ask Ocasio she will, based on her fantastic education, tell you about the economy of scale … we’ll get it done for less than 600 billion. And with the peripheral green jobs we’ll make a profit.
$93 trillion over a decade. $36,100 to $65,300 per American household per year to meet the Green New Deal’s goal.
No worries! It’s not real money, you won’t have to pay. It will just be added to the national debt, like all governments do and especially socialist ones.
You won’t have to pay, the bill will just be passed on to all those grandchildren we are saving the climate for.
What grandchildren. We are not supposed to have children according to AOC, no children means no grandchildren.
Now…New math, kids will just skip one generation
In the Green New Utopia, all children will be like AOC … maybe not having children isn’t such a bad idea.
Money has absolutely no meaning once she destroys the economy and reduces those lucky enough to still be living to subsistence living.
The cost , in money , is the least of the problems with this GND . What you are risking with the deal , especially in the extreme form demanded by the children of the most liberal communities is the homogeneity of the US itself .
By first reducing and then banning the use of fossil fuels you are denying yourself the asset that provides most of the energy for current lifestyles, the money that will now have to be withdrawn to compensate and the elimination of material that provides for much of modern life from food to clothing . Just buy from India and China people say . Buy with what ? For rich politicians ,and the well healed academics and financiers funding this deal it may not be a problem but they are in a minority. India and China will not hand out food and clothing , steel and rubber , etc to 300million people for nothing , forever. They will want recompense , but fortunately (fortunately?) you have something they need – space. Sell territory , a sort of Louisiana purchase or Alaska purchase in reverse . But then you risk having large areas where Washington’s writ no longer runs.
But that is only half the story , because that would be the legitimate barter market. Judging from the experience of Britain during rationing in 40s and 50s there will be a black market and the crime associated with it. Prohibition , where just one item was banned was surely a warning of what could ensue . And who will run the black market ? Not nice people but the Mafia and cartel types who have successfully run drug smuggling in the US for the last 70 years . Another cause for the social and political disintegration of the formerly United States. And for what gain in the end?
Soooo much time, money, and energy wasted on the socialist fraud of AGW/Climate Change.
#WalkAway #GreenScrewDeal
I’m already signed up as unwilling to work. It is better to receive than to give.
Sign up here.
http://www.unwillingtowork.org/
(Worth the click. Very funny. The FAQ section is good.)
Good news!
Based on your application, your new, very important profession under the Green New Deal will be Tide Pod Taste-tester and your new salary will be $195,698/yr.
But I’m unwilling to work!
$65,000/yr? No Prob. Get those presses ready. Might want to start printing $500 and $1000 bills again to pay for bread… Not everyone has room to store wheelbarrows.
The US Adjusted Gross Income in 2016 was $10.2 Trillion. That was the aggregate income of all individuals as reported to the US.
From 1945 to 2000 that number grew from $120 Billion to $6.4 Trillion. The real growth was ~ 3% annually. From 2000 to 2016 the real growth was about 1%. Currently the entitlement apparatus is growing faster than the income to pay for it.
Let’s assume by 2020 the AGI is $11.5 Trillion. By then the Federal, State and Local expenditures could be $7 Trillion. Adding another $9.3 Trillion per year on the backs of taxpayers should be a trick.
Apparently they are planning on making many trade offs and giving up much of the $5 Trillion spent to be spent on Social Programs. And then increasing taxes on nonexistent incomes, as well.
For those favoring taxing the 16,000 making over $10 Million annually, keep in mind doubling their taxes only generates $120 Billion.
Should be quite a show. For those commenters above who think it’s doable or a good idea, get your head out of your a..!
Simple math, we’ll just increase their taxes 200 fold and use that as the $12 Trillion
Why only households have to pay? How about corporate citizens like Amazon and Netflix who pay no tax on billions in profits
Besides, we dont pay for 1 trillion a year in military spending, we just borrow it.
Heres an idea, instead of taxes and borrowing to pay, how about printing greenbacks using the natural resources of the country as assets to back the currency. Its about time The Fed Reserve had some competition for money creation who uses toxic and worthless MBS , and USTS to back their notes. As Henry Ford once said, if a country can print treasuries to sell for cash they can print the cash.
Corporations don’t pay taxes, they just collect them. The taxes corporations “pay” get added to the cost of the product/service they are selling. The end user ultimately pays the hidden tax. Politicians like this arrangement as it allows them to demonize the “greedy corporations” while at the same time picking the consumers pocket.
Heres an idea, instead of taxes and borrowing to pay, how about printing greenbacks using the natural resources of the country as assets to back the currency.
The Weimer republic (among many other regimes throughout history) tried that idea. When you print money at the amount needed for the Green New Deal, the result will be the same as all those other failed attempts at printing money as a way out of government’s revenue problems: hyper-inflation
The Progressive wing of the Democrat party needs to topple the old leadership immediately! BAU is not going to bring equity to the people. Feed the starving masses. Achieve healthcare as a human right. Keep up the good work AOC. Yes you can. Yes you can.
Donald J Trump
… “the Green New Deal would bankrupt the nation,” Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso said in a statement …
==================================================
He is certainly right about that but then forfeits the argument by suggesting other means to reduce emissions instead of dealing with the climate change™ hobgoblin head-on like Trump.
Once you cede to the ‘fossil fuels -> CO2 -> climate change -> bad (going to kill us)’ narrative you’ve lost.
If it’s one thing I absolutely agree with AOC, it’s this: DEFICITS AND DEBTS DON’T F-ING MATTER. (in the USA)
Absolutely nothing changes between $0 debts/deficits (Clinton) and $22 Trillion in debt (with more deficit spending under Trump)
QED
You’re confusing deficits with debts.
Thanks to windfall cap gains taxes in 1999 from the dotcom bubble and the GOP Congress from 1995, Clinton did enjoy one year of a balanced budget, but the US still had debts.
The national debt was $5674 billion in 2000 (not adjusted for inflation). It’s now about $22,000 billion.
The War on Terror, bank bailout, recession and uncontrolled spending by CR under Bush and Obama blew it up.
It was Reagan’s tax cuts, Gingrich’s holding the line on spending plus the tech bubble that resulted in Clinton’s zero deficit. (Of course it wasn’t actually zero because it was still being papered over by Social Security surplus’s. Something that no longer exists.)
Trump’s deficits are small compared to Obama’s, and that’s despite the fact that we have more debt at higher interest rates than Obama’s time in office.
Finally, under Trump federal tax revenue has been setting records.
Absolutely nothing changes between $0 debts/deficits (Clinton) and $22 Trillion in debt (with more deficit spending under Trump)
Clinton did not have $0 debt. He left office with trillions in debt. (Obama added as much debt as all the presidents from Washington to Bush combined). What Clinton did have happen on his watch however, was a chimera of a “balanced budget” for one year (the debt still rose by $281 billion that year). I say Chimera, because while Clinton managed to pay down the “public debt” (making it look like he was reducing the debt/had no deficit) he did so by borrowing far more money in the form of intra-governmental holdings, selling the debt to agencies that held the securities as assets (mostly Social Security). As well, short-term governmental securities were replaced longer term debt maturing on someone else’s watch.
In a socialist country it works because:
It isn’t real money that they use.
It is usually slave labour.
“We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”
interesting that your headline number is the upper limit of the estimate, vice half that as the lower limit.
Given that deception, I personally (2 grandchildren below age 2) find even the high estimate worthwhile considering the alternative.
Such estimates are almost invariably higher than the upper limit when reality comes to pass.
The alternative being a vibrant economy and growing opportunity and prosperity. What about this do you dislike?
Indeed. Can anyone name any programs that didn’t end up costing more that the upper limit estimates? I sure there might be one (maybe), but if so that would be the exception not the rule.
What is the alternative?
Freedom instead of socialism.
Continued beneficial increases in the world’s temperature combined with more greening from enhanced CO2
You personally want economic ruin, a short-brutal existence all for no real affect on the environment for your 2 grandchildren instead of the alternative of economic prosperity and the modern conveniences that come with cheap energy. I hope you are not planning on having your grandchildren look after you in your old age because 1) you and they aren’t likely to live that long in the world you prefer and 2) should you and they manage to survive that long, they’d be wise to want nothing to do with someone who would wish such misery on them.
It means nothing to the 50% of households not paying taxes anyway, so it’s really $130,000 for each PRODUCTIVE household out there. So, how fast will the productive folks move from the Productive Class over the Welfare Class? Faster than you can say Communism.
Has anyone even read that study? They assume that 50% of the new low carbon capacity is going to be nuclear in states that have nuclear power, while the greens and AOC obviously want a ban on nuclear power. Then they don’t assume any new transmission costs, while the new wind and solar will require a huge amount of new power lines. And finally, they assume just 4 hours of storage on the grid, which is not even remotely enough to provide any semblance of reliability in a grid that’s mostly intermittent generation with some inflexible nuclear and no gas or diesel, so their modeled grid will be in near permanent blackout due to wind and sun not showing up when required. The total costs should be much much higher than meager 5 trillion.
Oh, why worry about the cost. AOC said that’s no problem, we’ll do it somehow.
Even if they were, You can’t drive high speed train on the the same rails as freight trains. It has to be separate tracks. In essence doubling the existing rail network.
And all in ten years.
no economy … therefore no need for freight of any kind.
Tilting at windmills is a first-order farcing of clean, renewable greenbacks and democratic leverage.
There is only one problem with that analysis. It assumes the economy would continue and the people would have enough money to pay for it. When in reality, the economy would collapse. The inevitable fate of a socialist economy.
The only thing with unlimited supply is human stupidity. In Australia, our greenie types and a Labor shadow front bencher approve the end of the entire coal industry. Without coal, we lose around half our export income. Considering we gave away our manufacturing to China, how are we going to pay for our cheap rubbishy imports? Without the export income, the economy totally collapses. Household incomes will collapse, tax receipts will plummet (how can you tax someone with almost no income), unemployment will skyrocket and what is left of our industries will become totally uncompetitive. It will become a race for who can find the best cave.
Likewise, the Green Deal is total lunacy, driven by Utopian visions that are just whimsy that just do not stack up to even rudimentary analysis. With the delusional left refusing to enter in to debate (how bigoted) , just insisting it must be right, no scrutiny permitted, if ever a Democratic President is elected (or fraudulently elected) they will pass this suicidal rubbish immediately.
What is most disturbing is that any human with a brain actually would allow such insanity to become eco fascist law.
If AOC says American families can afford her plan it must be true, the woman is a financial genius.
With a salary of $158k she can afford a different brand new $600 coat every time she appears in public.
I don’t know why House Resolution 109 (Recognizing Duty of Congress To Create a Green New Deal was not laughed out of Congress.
I don’t know why the kids lawsuit circus also was not laughed out of the courts.
There’s an existential crisis, all right — a crisis of failing intelligence at the highest levels of societal governing.
Report: Green New Deal Could Cost Every US Household $65,000 A Year
Smart progressive/marxist/democrap economics there — what a bargain! And saving 0.005 C temp change to boot!