At an event in Iowa, Bernie Sanders acknowledged that his $16 trillion plan to address climate change is “expensive.”
The Saturday event, dubbed the Climate Crisis Summit, featured both the independent Vermont senator and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and was held in Des Moines, Iowa. During the event, Sanders spoke about his “Green New Deal” plan, which plays off a resolution by Ocasio-Cortez.
“Building on the Green New Deal, we have brought forth a rather detailed proposal, and I have been criticized by some who say it is expensive,” Sanders told the crowd Saturday. “Well, they’re right, it is. It’s $16 trillion.”
The $16.3 trillion plan intends to transition the United States to 100% renewable energy in a decade.
Sanders proposes paying for the plan by cutting military spending, increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations, litigation, fees, and taxes on the fossil fuel industry, and “collecting new income tax revenue from the 20 million new jobs created by the plan,” in addition to other ideas.
“The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s. Battling a world war on two fronts — both in the East and the West — the United States came together, and within three short years restructured the entire economy in order to win the war and defeat fascism,” Sanders’ plan reads.
