IF FUNDED, IT WON’T WORK

Where’s $93 Trillion

Coming From To

Pay Bill For A Green

New Deal?

I was struck by a news clip showing Elizabeth Warren speaking to a crowd and telling them we need to remove the control over our lives from government and put it back into the hands of the people. This
is the same woman who is supporting Bernie in his call for socialism.
Socialism is a system based on government control over the “people.” After all, some entity has to decide who gets to keep their wealth and who doesn’t. Guess who would get to keep it.
This call for returning control to  the “people,” that’s you and me,
comes at a time when liberals are calling for government-controlled healthcare for all at a cost of $32 trillion over 10 years, while taking healthcare choices away from the 150 million plus Americans who presently have health care and “The Green New Deal” (GND) with an undetermined cost (somewhere in excess of $93 trillion, $600,000 per household) without including the adverse impact to our economy.
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Before getting into the specifics of the GND, let’s take a look at the numbers. Our current national debt is about $22 trillion – not including about $60 trillion in unfunded pensions. If that was your checkbook, you would be broke and have filed for bankruptcy.
However, the government just keeps spending more than it takes in from tax revenue – and we allow it to do so. And it’s not just the debt that has to be repaid (theoretically).
You and I are being asked, via our taxes, to pay the interest on that debt and we don’t get any tangible benefits from that money (no new bridges or roads, no new jobs, etc.).
With regards to turning over our healthcare system to government control, aside from the cost, based on what we know about our government’s ability to effectively and efficiently run something, anything, should we do that? Enough said.
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What about the sincerity of the politicians pushing those programs at the same time they’re telling us they don’t want to spend $5 billion forborder security because doing so would add to our debt?
Remember, the wall is $5 billion

with measurable benefits and health care for all and the GND is $125 trillion of new debt with smoke and mirrors benefits. Does that appear to be hypocritical to you?
We learn from our experiences and, over time, we have a built-in data bank that allows us to compare the body of knowledge we have acquired over time and based upon our experiences with new things as they arise.
This would be a good time to invest a little of our time and compare the likely results of the GND with what we know about how things actually work.
After reading the GND several times, I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. The idea that we can totally replace the energy we get today from fossil fuels with “renewables” without the use of nuclear energy within 10-20 years is ludicrous.
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According to a Jan. 11, 2019, article in the Wall Street Journal, it would take about 100 trillion kilowatt hours (kwh) per year to offset the carbon from today’s use of fossil fuels. To get to that level of carbon-free energy would take 3.3 trillion kwh of new, clean energy every year for 30 years. Without the inclusion of nuclear energy in that mix, we simply can’t ramp up quickly enough.
Germany, the country with the most ambitious effort so far, only added about one-fifth of the amount needed. According to the article, if every nation was as ambitious as Germany, it would take about 150, not 10 or 20 as proposed in the GND, years to decarbonize – and the GND doesn’t include nuclear power as an option.
To paraphrase the article, if we look at the two renewables with the most promise, solar and wind, they’re faced with this reality: When the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow they don’t produce much reliable energy. The GND relies heavily on “clean” electricity, but offers no reliable way of producing it when and where it is needed.
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Over the next few articles, I’ll delve into the specifics of the GND to examine where opportunities lie and where the intellectual integrity of the proposals is questionable.
The glowing platitudes sound good when you say them fast, but what do they really mean to your wallet, freedom and ability to keep your pipes from freezing on a bitterly cold night?
Of one thing I am certain – if airplane travel is severely curtailed by the GND that finally emerges, the congressmen and senators from Hawaii won’t support it. That’s a long way to row.

Mike Zagata, former DEC commissioner in the Pataki Administration and environmental executive with Fortune 500 companies, lives in West Davenport.