Senate majority forces vote on 'Green New Deal' climate change proposal
Mitch McConnell says he was giving presidential candidates in the chamber a chance to support a campaign trail staple; Peter Doocy reports from Capitol Hill.
It makes perfect sense for America to be a good steward of the environment today, tomorrow and in the future. But when common sense and reality is trumped by radical ideology and fiction, there is a huge problem that can change our political, economic, social environment to our detriment.
The “Green New Deal” offered by self-proclaimed “Socialist Democrats” is not a challenge to be environmentally responsible. It is a surrender of a lifestyle and economy that will forever change America as we know it.
Fundamental to the Green New Deal is the surrendering of a free market to government control and regulations. Every decision would be tested by a set of environmental impact standards. The Green New Deal seeks the elimination of fossil fuel production in its entirety. Just as America has become independent from foreign sources of fossil fuels, we would suddenly be unable to exploit our own resources for our own benefit and consumption. The markets would no longer be drivers of change, bureaucrats would.
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Another edict of the Green New Deal is the elimination of America’s livestock and airline industries. No longer would the government allow free market ranching. In fact, it would regulate them out of business in a warped sense of being environmentally responsible. It is unfathomable to think Americans will stand for milk and meat substitutes in their diet.
If the elimination of livestock is not crazy enough, the Green New Deal is also advocating for the elimination of the airline industry. No longer would Americans be allowed to travel by air as we do today. The Green New Deal seeks a pivot to high-speed rail. That is hard to do when you seek to travel beyond the continental United States.
The Green New Deal also mandates changes be made to every structure in America to meet new arbitrary environmental regulations. The burden would be borne mostly by small businesses, which are the backbone of the American economy. Businesses would be forced to downsize and take out loans to meet new standards.
The Green New Deal is a jobs killer. It would put millions out of work with the stroke of a pen with no industries to absorb the losses.
The fact is that America today is a clean and responsible country by measure of any reasonable standards. Compared to China, India and Russia we are clean as a whistle. The facts are that self-imposed, arbitrary and unnecessary government controls and regulations stifle and retard America and reward dirty countries who will never meet the “clean” standards imposed on America by America.
The United States in the last 150 years produced 11 of the 13 greatest inventions that changed the world. Everything from the light bulb to the Internet. Those inventions came out of public need, not government edict. In fact, none of those inventions would be possible without public-private partnerships. The government and the private sector work best to improve the country when they work together. The greatness of American ingenuity has been shared with the world. When we invent, we invent for the world. To think that America will unilaterally retreat and allow government to take the place of the private sector in our most critical industries by fiat is unimaginable. Yet, so many Democrats running for president have embraced the “Green New Deal” in concept.
The worst thing we can do is surrender ourselves to political whim or world pressures. Government’s role is to do for the public that which the public cannot do for themselves and nothing more. Government must never be a substitute for the marketplace of free ideas, innovation, business and prosperity.
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The only way to make generational changes is by need, innovation and pricing. The marketplace has never failed us before.
America should always strive within reason and necessity to be environmentally responsible, but not at the expense of fundamentally and irreversibly changing our government and way of life for the worst.
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