AOC offers gems fit for Dion’s dreams
When Stéphane Dion lounges around his ambassadorial residence, watching YouTube videos of Congresswoman Alexandria OcasioCortez and contemplating the past, he must slap his forehead in wonder and frustration.
Ocasio-Cortez has made a big splash in the U.S. with her “Green New Deal,” which would restructure the American economy around ambitious environmental goals and a raft of generous social benefit guarantees. The U.S. left has been energized as seldom before, while Ocasio-Cortez — a 29-year-old rookie representative from New York — has achieved an international profile as the face of a new generation of impatient “progressives.”
It has to hit home with Dion. Rejected by Canadian voters, replaced as Liberal leader, he now serves as ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the European Union, posts handed him as a sort of consolation prize after being elbowed out of cabinet.
Dion’s great failing as leader, other than a decided lack of charisma and a party on the downslope, was his attempt to win the 2008 election on the basis of his “Green Shift,” an environmental plan that proposed the barest whiff of the wonders contained in the Ocasio-Cortez blueprint, but which was considered too radical by half by cautious Canadians.
Dion saw the Green Shift as a groundbreaking revamp of Canadian tax structures, providing incentives to reduce greenhouse gases while introducing tax cuts and a boost to investment. It would have imposed an emissions tax of $10 a tonne, rising over four years to $40 a tonne. (The Trudeau Liberals’ current carbon plan starts at $20 a tonne and increases $10 a year to $50.) At the same time, Dion offered a cut to the lowest tax brackets, added a new universal child benefit and increased the Guaranteed Income Supplement for the poorest seniors. It would be a winner on all fronts: emissions would be reduced at no cost to anyone, while the poor got a break and investors poured new money into the economy!
The idea foundered on several fronts. Dion proved a poor salesman, Conservatives and New Democrats combined to poke holes in overstated Liberal claims, and Canadians unnerved by the financial crisis erupting south of the border were in no mood to roll the dice on their own well-being. Given the circumstances it was a bit of a wonder the Tories managed only a minority government out of the fray.
Ocasio-Cortez, in comparison, makes Green Shift advocates look like a bunch of uninspired punks. Her sweeping resolution would institute a vast crusade to upgrade “all existing buildings in the United States … to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort and durability, including through electrification.”
It would guarantee jobs “with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States,” ensure high-quality universal health care, “affordable, safe and adequate housing, economic security and clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature.”
So revolutionary are the goals of Resolution 109 that skeptics suggested it aimed to end air travel and banish cow farts — an acknowledged contributor to global warming — as it sped towards “net zero” greenhouse gases within a decade. The rollout quickly got confusing when an FAQ page mentioning bovine flatulence apparently got yanked from OcasioCortez’s website, and the congressional rookie began tweeting that dark forces were posting doctored versions in attempts to discredit her. She acknowledged, however, that an unfinished version had unintentionally been released, and that “there’s also draft versions floating around out there.”
Even the correct official version seems likely to disconcert many Americans who, unlike OcasioCortez — a “Democratic Socialist” — consider themselves somewhat this side of revolutionary. Its demand for “high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition” may not go down well in the 27 states that have adopted right-to-work legislation enabling workers to resist forced union membership. The costs of universal health care, free college tuition and guaranteed jobs for everyone seem sure to rattle a populace more accustomed to complaining about too much government intervention as it is.
Even sympathetic interviewers note that Ocasio-Cortez has few concrete ideas on how to pay for the trillions of dollars required, other than suggesting American ingenuity would find a way to meet the costs. On National Public Radio she readily agreed it constituted a “massive government intervention,” insisting “I have no problem saying that,” only to reverse herself hours later, asserting that “one way the right does try to mischaracterize what we’re doing is as though it’s some kind of massive government takeover.”
If Ocasio-Cortez isn’t entirely sure about the full extent of her vision, others can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by it all. Supporters note that the resolution is non-binding, and really just a statement of what people on the left would, deep in their hearts, really like to achieve in an ideal world. But guaranteed jobs, powerful union bosses, housing for everyone, free education and health care with no one but the government stuck with the costs, and an allegedly crackerjack bureaucracy wisely overseeing it all, is just the sort of utopian idea that seized a less experienced world a century or so ago, only to morph into something far uglier and oppressive.
A columnist for The New York Times — usually a friendly forum for liberals — wrote that Resolution 109 “manages to confirm every conservative critique of liberal environmental activism,” which suspects that “when liberals talk about the dire threat of global warming, they’re really seizing opportunistically on the issue to justify … the seizure of the economy’s commanding heights in order to implement the most left-wing possible agenda.”
That probably wasn’t OcasioCortez’s intention, but she’s young and idealistic, and perhaps she hasn’t read much history. Dion would understand that the world isn’t always ready for utopia.
SHE’S YOUNG AND IDEALISTIC, AND PERHAPS SHE HASN’T READ MUCH HISTORY.