House Select Committee on Climate Change

In the posts The Costs of the Green New Deal and Paying for the Green New Deal I attempted to pull together some of the costs of the New Green Deal being proposed. These posts pulled together the costs that have been estimated for free education, free healthcare, and a guaranteed living wage jobs program. The total costs of implementing these three aspects of the New Green Deal would require quadrupling our national income taxes to pay for them. This attempt wasn't based on a formal New Green Deal published by the Democrat party but one published by the Green Party. Now we finally have the scope of the Democratic version of the New Green Deal available and the scope of the program goes much further than my original posts that we couldn't afford.

This Green New Deal is put together ostensibly to combat the impact of man made climate change. Personally I do believe the climate is changing but haven't seen enough evidence to make me believe that man is responsible for it. Some of my earlier posts put forth why I don't believe man is responsible for the climate changing, for me to give a short summary of why I am not a believer is because based on the laws of physics, it's just not possible. The Green New Deal intends to put together a solution to a problem without ever explicitly stating the problem. The plan would be implemented over a 10 year period, but no reason was ever given as to why it needs to happen within 10 years.

The Green New Deal is seeking to modify rules in the House of Representatives to establish a select committee within the House to come up with a plan (with laws) to implement this plan. The plan is to be completed by January 1, 2020 with the full plan to be implemented over the subsequent 10 years. The major objectives of the plan include:

1. Dramatically expand existing renewable power sources and deploy new production capacity with the goal of meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources;
2. building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;
3. upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
4. eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries, including by investing in local-scale agriculture in communities across the country;
5. eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure, and upgrading water infrastructure to ensure universal access to clean water;
6. funding massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases;
7. making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely greenhouse gas neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.

The costs of implementing this would be staggering if you could even stand up when you heard the total value. Just looking at Item 3, upgrading residential and industrial building for state of the art energy efficiency. Pulling together numbers from Forbes and The Balance there are $37.8 trillion of residential and commercial real estate in the United States. Upgrades of 10% of that value would be $3.78 trillion, more than twice the amount that was taken in by the U.S. government as income taxes in 2016. The money has to come from somewhere, it's possible however the owners of the real estate would be stuck with this tab as a massive wealth redistribution program.

The Green New Deal goes on to attempt to ease the transition into a new economy, an economy comprised of no one having any wealth. To ease the transition the plan will provide free education, guaranteed living wage jobs and universal health care. Remember, these three items alone constituted another $3+ trillion annually from taxes.

But as with many events put together by liberals, establishing this House Select Committee isn't about putting together a plan to combat climate change. This is the official launch of an effort within our government to put together a road map for implementing socialism. This Select Committee will probably be established and many will deem it a waste of money when no legislation gets passed from this committee. For the liberals however it isn't a waste of money because they will have a plan in place, plus it's not their money it's our tax money. It could be 10, 20, or even 30 years before the liberals get control of the House, Senate, and Presidency at one time. When they do, they simply pull out the plan, blow the dust off of it and start implementation. This isn't going to be a Select Committee on Climate Change, it's the Central Planning Committee of the United Socialist States of America.