In the ideal America outlined by 2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders, the majority of the economy would be centralized and socialized.
Atop our existing government spending, comprising some 40% of GDP, the Vermont Senator wouldn't just nationalize one-fifth of the economy with a "Medicare For all" bill eliminating private health insurance. Under his Green New Deal plan, he would also nationalize most of the energy sector.
At a mere $16.3 trillion, the Sanders plan would go beyond simply spending measures to increase climate-focused research and development. It would literally centralize the means of domestic energy production, supposedly in that process "creating" 20 million union jobs in "steel and auto manufacturing, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, coding and server farms, and renewable power plants."
Sanders states in his plan that he would pay for his Green New Deal, in part, from the $6.4 trillion he expects to earn in revenue through the federal government-operated utilities that he expects will be generating "green" power for all of us for the first 12 years of the plan. This revenue includes renewable power that would come online to replace the nation's nuclear capacity, which Sanders wants to phase out, in addition to all fossil fuel sources of electricity.
The energy industry comprises 9% of the American economy. Throw in every associated cost of auto manufacturing, public transit, and sustainable agriculture that the Sanders plan specifically demarcates, and that figure could maybe even double. Between "Medicare For all" and the Green New Deal, Sanders is seriously calling for the outright nationalization of 30% to 40% of the American economy.
The senators running for president all jumped on the Squad's bandwagon to co-sponsor the Green New Deal without even knowing what would be in it. Republican Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, effectively cajoled them into voting against it when brought to a floor vote, granting the socialist Christmas list a mercy-killing, and allowing the 2020 hopefuls to return to their empty gesturing on other issues.
But in bringing back a Green New Deal in earnest, Sanders reminds us how far left the Democratic primary has run and the stakes of preserving a free, privately operated economy.
