Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, February 10, 2019
ISSUE #961
Democrats for President and the Green New Deal

Who is the head of the Democrat Party? Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the obvious answer. She wields the sledgehammer when it comes to dealing with the President. When she says “no money for an immoral wall” she controls the budget and Trump cannot overrule her.

On the other hand, the Democrat in charge of the 2020 campaign for President is not Nancy Pelosi. It’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She got elected to Congress in November, but a year ago no one knew her except folks who frequented a bar in the Bronx where she was a bar tender. So what makes her powerful?

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez published a 16-page “Green New Deal” plan, sometimes called “Green Dream” or “Green Nightmare.” Her detailed plan instantly got national publicity. News about it has spread so rapidly that the first question every Democrat candidate for President has to answer is, “Do you support the Green New Deal?” Whether they say, Yes or No, it’s wrong. (My advice to the dozens planning to jump into the race is to wait six months until these early candidates knock each other out.)

She and Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Markey  have achieved such a tremendous following that President Trump had to say something in his State of the Union speech that has never been uttered before by any of our previous 44 Presidents: “We will never become a Socialist nation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the originator of the real “New Deal” was called a socialist by a lot of Republicans, but he never felt compelled to make such a bold statement. Neither Huey Long, Senator from Louisiana, with his “Share the Wealth” plan, nor Upton Sinclair in California with his “Eliminate Poverty in California” (EPIC) plan ever reached the point where every candidate for high office had to say whether he was for it or against it.

This Green New Deal plan was clearly written by a person who never traveled more than a few miles from her home in the Bronx, and that was by bicycle or subway. She is oblivious to America west of the Hudson River. The only book on Economics she learned from was by Karl Marx.

She never milked a cow, but blames them for climate change. She expects everyone to get free or low cost food, but expects farmers to grow crops with horsepower. Yes, horses, because diesel tractors will be forbidden. Everyone unable or unwilling to work will receive a minimum wage. Our minimum wage has always been intended as a starting wage. Most people, including teenagers working at McDonalds, soon get promoted to a better job. My guess is that those “unwilling to work” will get so good at it, they will demand to move up from $15/hour to at least $20. And may demand a shorter “not have to work week.” High school students will be signing up for their free college education, majoring in a degree that will qualify them for a career in “unwilling to work.” (Surprisingly, we have several of those degrees today.)

By the way,  if most farmers decide they are “unwilling to work” because they can only use a horse or  mule, a hoe, shovel and scythe to grow non-GMO, organic crops you had better prepare to go on a Venezuela diet.

The New Deal in the 1930s was instituted to put men to work when 25 percent were unemployed. With the WPA and CCC,  men and boys cut trails, paved roads, built schools and other buildings (many still stand), and cleared land. A lot of work was done by hand, but they used every bit of technology and powered equipment they could get their hands on or coble together. They got 3 meals a day, a place to sleep, and a little money to send home to the family.

Today we’re got 4 percent unemployed, and this Green New Deal is designed to take jobs away from millions. Sure, for every thousand working in the coal, oil and gas industries, it will take more than 10,000 in the green energy business to produce the same energy. So who can afford this “free” energy? I guess we would sit at home in the dark, cold and hungry.

FDR would not want any connection to this AOC plan. None at all.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“There’s no income tax in Russia, but there’s no income.” Radio, Apr. 7, 1935

 “When you say ‘a government can’t run a business,’ you mean our government can’t run it.”  DT #2380, March 20, 1934

“Well, this ‘soak the rich’ program is about all you hear now and you can tell just to a dollar how much a man has got by how sore he is.” DT #2771, June 23, 1935

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