OPINION:
There’s a saying in the Bible that goes, “Come, let us reason together.”
And you can bet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with her Green New Deal and all, hasn’t read it.
That’s to say: The Green New Deal is about as far from a thinking person’s mind as can be.
Can you say government control? Or, at the least, absurd? Apparently, the absurdities run so deep even Ocasio-Cortez herself can’t keep track.
As Grabien’s Tom Elliott noted and the Daily Caller reported, NPR “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep asked Ocasio-Cortez if her plan would bring on “massive government intervention,” and she said, in response: “It does. It does.”
Just a few hours later, however, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, in a separate interview, asked Ocasio-Cortez for her strategy of selling the plan to taxpayers and she answered that first things first, she would need to correct how the “right” was trying to “mischaracterize what we’re doing as though it is like some kind of massive government takeover.”
Well, which is it?
How about we let the proposal speak for itself?
In the words of the actual resolution introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey from Massachusetts, the goal is to eliminate all U.S. carbon emissions, in part by pushing people to abandon air travel in favor of trains; to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;” to “secure for all people of the United States for generations to come — clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment, and to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities;” etc., etc.
Stop. Just stop.
The 14-page resolution reads like an elementary-school level wish list, minus the unicorns and free-candy Fridays.
It’s not that nirvana in itself is a reprehensible hope. It’s that calling for free healthcare for all, free college for all, effort-free jobs for all — or, for those who prefer not to work, free paychecks — without at least recognizing that the word “free” in government lingo means “tax-paid” in the real world, is a reprehensible, egregious ignorance. And this is what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brings to the table — ignorance.
Ignorance and no doubt, soon enough, the promise of free unicorn rides for all.
But before dismissing Ocasio-Cortez as inconsequential and her Green New Deal as silly socialist claptrap, consider the response of the Democratic Party.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the proposal a “green dream.” But as Ocasio-Cortez responded in a press conference caught by CNN: That’s not necessarily a dismissal.
“All great American programs started with a vision for our future,” she said, on CNN.
On top of that, Ocasio-Cortez said her plan has plenty of co-sponsors, plenty of supporters. The Dems, as a party, will more than likely ride this unicorn as far as it will go, too.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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