A watchdog group named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday its “Porker of the Year” for 2019, citing her sponsorship of the costly “Green New Deal” proposal.
Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz said the New York Democrat received 54% in the group’s online poll, easily beating out Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who garnered 25%, and four other candidates.
“The results are not surprising, as Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s $93 trillion proposal exemplifies the Congress’s failure to protect the taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” Mr. Schatz said. “For pushing a radical plan that would destroy the American economy, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez deserves the distinction of 2019 Porker of the Year.”
The Green New Deal is a liberal blueprint for everything including cutting carbon emissions and guaranteeing every American a job. A left-leaning think tank estimated in 2018 that the jobs guarantee portion of the plan alone would cost the government about $543 billion per year.
President Trump and the Republican Party have seized on the Green New Deal as proof that Democrats have turned too far left heading into the 2020 elections and are trying to enforce a costly, socialist utopia on the rest of the country that would ruin the economy.
Asked last year how she would pay for the plan, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told NPR: “I think the first thing that we need to do is kind of break the mistaken idea that taxes pay for 100% of government expenditure. It’s just not how government expenditure works.
“We can recoup costs, but oftentimes you look at, for example, the GOP tax cut, which I think was an irresponsible use of government expenditure,” she said at the time. “But government projects are often financed by a combination of taxes, deficit spending and other kinds of investments.”
CNN pointed out that her agenda of “Medicare for All,” guaranteed jobs, eliminating student loan debt, free college tuition, paid family leave and Social Security expansion would cost $40 trillion over 10 years. She has proposed tax increases on wealthier Americans to pay for $2 trillion of that.
The freshman Democrat also won the CAGW’s “Porker of the Month” award in March when she introduced the Green New Deal.
“Her bill would be a disaster for American taxpayers for a litany of reasons that are difficult to count,” the group said in a statement. “Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and her allies have yet to submit a plan that comes even remotely close to paying for this tsunami of new spending.”
The taxpayer group noted that a fact sheet introduced with the Green New Deal cited a goal of replacing every combustion-engine vehicle and create a rail system that would make air travel unnecessary. Her office later distanced itself from those goals.
Ms. Warren, one of the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, also won a monthly “porker” award last year for her proposal for “free” college and a taxpayer-funded bailout of most student loan debt.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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