It’s not true, but if you ask Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., she’ll tell you conservatives don’t care about poor people. Ocasio-Cortez and her socialist cohorts such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., think any empathetic person has to support her laundry list of big government proposals — dubbed the “Green New Deal.” She’s called for nationalized healthcare, a federal jobs guarantee, and even “economic security” for those who are “unwilling to work.”

But for the poor, Ocasio-Cortez’s plan is rife with unintended consequences. The big-government platform pushed by the emerging socialist Left would do more to set the poorest Americans back, as its dysfunction extends beyond the usual dependency trap of modern welfare. Indeed, funding socialist programs this large would destroy our civil institutions and decimate private charity. After all, the roughly $93 trillion price tag on the “Green New Deal” would require unprecedented levels of taxation. Even Ocasio-Cortez’s ideal means of funding it, a 70 percent top marginal tax rate, would raise about $720 billion at most.