The green new deal...

[EdyKel]

I might as well make a topic about this since it getting a lot of attention...

It's one of those new policies that is being promoted by the more progressive branch of the Democrats. From what I read, the general consensus seems to be that it does go a bit far. But some are praising it, if for nothing more, than bringing up the very important issue of climate change, which is already affecting everyone to some degree (though, some may not want to admit it), in a time when the Trump administration is going overboard in trying to undo progress that addresses it.

While progressive Democrats seem fully behind it the more centrist, to conservative, Democrats are rather lukewarm to it. The GOP are giddy about, if mostly to use it to paint Democrats as extremists and the party that grows government regulations. Sen. Tom Cotton, a deep conservative, is already comparing it to being Stalin-Like, while Mitch McConnell plans to allow the Senate to vote on it, if only to get Democrats on record for voting for it - it's all political.

Whatever you may feel about climate change, political polling continuously shows it to be a "meh" issue with voters. It seems to excite certain segments of the population more than the majority of it - though, the Republicans seems to have a better result in exciting their base over it than Democrats, just like gun control. I don't expect much to come from this, especially with Trump in the White House, and the Senate controlled by Republicans. IU don't expect it to even survive init's current form among House Democrats, and will be severely watered down by them. But hopefully it will lead to something, though I won't hold my breath.

[Gario]

I think a lot people misunderstand what this particular bill is about. This version of the Green New Deal has precisely zero policy and hard law in it (so it makes no sense putting an estimate on it's cost yet, though obviously it'd be expensive). It isn't so much a law more than it is a statement of intent: as Edy puts it, it's 100% political. Not sure if Mitch knows that getting people to "put their names on it" by voting on it is exactly the point of the bill, so I guess a thanks is in order for putting it up for a vote...?

Kind of strange thanking him for doing his job, but whatever.

Outside of a few interesting ideas (the focus on high speed rail is an interesting choice, as is the focus on upgrading buildings), most of the ideas on their own are very popular ones (as in 60+% of Americans support them). You vote for it, great. You gonon record and don't vote for it and the next batch of Progressives use the individual items as the issue they hammer at them in the primary (if it was a Democrat), or the issue they slam you with in the general. You vote against this and they use the individual items (Climate change, job production, infrastructure, increased wages to living wages, etc.) as talking points against you. It's good politics, at the end of the day.

Opponents are hyperfocusing on the weirder aspects of it (namely the railroad and the buildings), which they purposely misrepresent. The railway aspect is proposed as something to address fuel consumption of air traffic, so therefore would have more money dedicated to it (the version being voted on doesn't have language that grounds planes in a decade - that is pure nonsense).

Interestingly, the item on buildings, for people in the know (this is my day job, so I work with this literally every day) is simply a reiteration of what we do already. People act like this means we have to upgrade every single building ever, but if any building has had work done on it past the 90's it already complies with what she's asking for: ASHRAE and Title 24 (in California) have been in effect for decades, reducing building energy consumption to acceptable levels. If you know what she's talking about, there's nothing to worry about, and all the talk panicking on it thrn sounds like fear mongering; at this stage it means simply not removing the laws we already have, and nothing more.

Bless her heart, AoC and Congress may not even be aware of that, being they're not engineers, so it's literally the least impactful item on that list.

But yeah, the Green New Deal is something that will be used to mark who to support in 2020 and beyond, and as a tool for which to beat your opponents with due to the fact that most of the provisions are insanely popular. It's all politics, but I'll be damned if it ain't all GOOD politics, and the people in DC are too inwardly focused to realize this is a political trap to mark them in the future.

Good stuff all around, I say. I'm sure precisely zero people on here are surprised that I'm supportive of it, though. :)

[Heretic-Anchorite]

At 2/14/19 11:35 AM, Gario wrote:
Good stuff all around, I say. I'm sure precisely zero people on here are surprised that I'm supportive of it, though. :)

I feel it may be more to get the ball rolling.

We know better then most countries that this stuff won't get done without a concentrated effort, and the kind of infrastructure these bills can bring is stuff needed since well over 10 years ago.

In legislature dealings it'll also be easier to work down then up.

[orangebomb]

The one advantage that the green new deal proposal has over many others that were similar to policies in the past is that there are some sort of plan involved that isn’t completely vague estimates. In theory at least, this will give the progressive democrats a platform on what is feasible in the short term and building from there.

Having said that, it is still a proposal that isn’t very popular outside of progressives, and will most likely be watered down to some extent even if the Democrats eventually take over the Senate and Presidency. Something like the high-speed trains and building codes will probably either get the shaft or will be greatly limited, while the fossil fuel dependence will, and should be more of a phasing out process until renewable energy becomes reliable enough on their own.

As I said before, they have time to rework and iron out the details while building a support base to get in motion once Trump and McConnell leaves. At the said time though, my hope is that progressives are flexible enough to realize that much of their goals are going to be challenged from both sides of the fence and will they be willing to accumulate short term pains and play the long game or will they go bust by being too aggressive?