Last week, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) unveiled their outline for a broad plan known as the Green New Deal. The plan does not only focus on dealing with the effects of climate change as its name would suggest, but also tends toward social and economic topics such as universal health care and simple living working wages.
The Green New Deal parallels the original New Deal not only in terms of names, but by way of their boldness and last-ditch effort strategies. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt unveiled the original New Deal in 1933, the Great Depression had wrecked the U.S.’s employment levels and economy overall. In modern days, climate change has caused catastrophic damage to the country as a whole. The introduction of a Green New Deal at this point in time signifies a return to Depression-era blueprints for getting back on track: frantic plans to remedy damage that has the potential to become irreversible if not dealt with properly and in a timely manner.
In noting this, one must also acknowledge the fact that the original New Deal wasn’t necessarily exemplary at fixing the problems that the Great Depression brought about, and leading economists believe that America’s eventual recovery from the Depression wasn’t due to the policies the New Deal set up, but rather European arrangements for war supplies and expansionary monetary orders on a macroeconomic level. In fact, it actually harmed much of the American population, raising taxes through the roof and causing many poor Americans to become even more financially unstable. The fact that the New Deal itself didn’t actually accomplish what it was intended to do suggests that the Green New Deal’s goals may not be fulfilled as quickly as it promises—having net zero greenhouse emissions from the U.S. by 2030—and that its potential success may very well come from outside sources, not the American government.
The Green New Deal has also already been received as divisive, given its more liberal tendencies, and the New Deal’s policies only passed because Congress in the 1930s agreed upon the urgency of the situation, whereas today, our government doesn’t seem to embrace the idea of bipartisan policy. Even though 81 percent of Americans appear to support the concepts backing the Green New Deal, the question is whether or not lawmakers will be cooperative enough to make tangible progress where the Deal aims to do so, be it environmentally, economically or otherwise. The utilization of a recognizable name was likely not an unintentional decision, though, and support for it during its implementation was vast. Many Americans associate the New Deal with economic progress.
Viewing the Green New Deal causes audiences to not only question whether or not the its broad plans will work given its schismatic nature in regards to the government, but also if its goals will be executed on American soil or via outside sources. While it holds the potential to mend some of America’s most alarming concerns, the U.S.’s circumstances still appear dim, as both parties will need to compromise and set some of their differences aside in order to do so. The Green New Deal could very feasibly end up becoming nothing more than a symbol of fleeting hope, should lawmakers not cooperate with each other.
