From: AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

By: Benjamin Zycher

April 2019

The Green New Deal

Economics and Policy Analytics

" The Green New Deal (GND) is a set of policy proposals, some more concrete than others, with the central advertised goal of ameliorating a purported climate crisis by implementing policies that would reduce US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to zero, or to “net zero,” by 2050 in some formulations. In addition, the GND incorporates other important social-policy goals as a means of forging a majority political coalition in support. The GND’s central premise is that such policies—either despite or by reducing sharply the economic value of some substantial part of the US resource base and the energy-producing and energyconsuming capital stock—would increase the size of the economy in real terms, increase employment, improve environmental quality, and improve distributional equity. That is a “broken windows” argument: The destruction of resources increases aggregate wealth. It is not to be taken seriously."

The Green New Deal

Economics and Policy Analytics