Congress needs to do something bold
Bill Press believes that Americans are tired of a do-nothing Congress. The time has come for bold action.
“Make no little plans,” said the great architect Daniel Burnham, “they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized.” Instead, advised the creator of Washington’s Union Station and city plan of Chicago, “Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.”
Good advice for Democrats as they begin to exercise leadership of the House of Representatives. Americans, especially young Americans, are sick and tired of a do-nothing, baby-step Congress whose major accomplishments lately have been adopting another continuing resolution or renaming a post office. Americans want government to deliver. They want big and bold ideas worthy of the 21st century. And Democrats just offered one of them — in the Green New Deal.
Check for yourself. Ask your friends or co-workers: “What’s the greatest thing our government has done for the American people?” I guarantee you that not one of them will mention Donald Trump’s tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.
Instead, among other bold moves, they’ll cite the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act: all legislation that improved the lives of millions of Americans and changed the course of history. And someday they’ll talk about the Green New Deal, too.
Introduced last week by freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and veteran U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D Mass., the Green New Deal is breathtaking in its scope and vision, maybe the most far-reaching legislative proposal since Medicare. It tackles head-on the dual challenges of income inequality and climate change. It encompasses at once a total restructuring of our environmental, energy, social and economic policy. It’s so big and bold it staggers the imagination.
Dare to dream. Imagine a fossil fuel-free economy in 10 years, with 100 percent of our work, home and transportation needs supplied by wind and solar. Imagine an America crisscrossed by high-speed train service, just like France and Japan. Imagine every building retrofitted to be energy efficient. Imagine every young American guaranteed a college education. Imagine every American family provided with basic, quality health care, family and medical leave, a family sustaining wage and retirement security.
Yes, it’s a big dream. But let’s also be realistic. It won’t happen all at once. Nobody expects it to. In fact, so far, it’s only a non-binding resolution. It’ll take time to translate its ideas into a package of specific legislative proposals, which will be debated, amended and voted on someday. And, in the end, some of them may not happen at all. For now, the Green New Deal’s only an ambitious set of goals. But they’re the right set of goals to strive for, I would argue, especially in light of NASA’s urgent warning about the reality and danger of climate change.
Which makes response to the Green New Deal so interesting. For the most part, Democrats responded with enthusiasm. More than 70 members of Congress signed on as co-sponsors, joined by at least eight 2020 presidential hopefuls: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Julian Castro and Pete Buttigieg.
The response from Republicans, meanwhile, was just the opposite. Having no new ideas of their own, they could only resort to ridicule. “It’s crazy. It’s loony,” said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, labeled it the new “socialist manifesto.” And, of course, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, accused Democrats of trying to ban “cow farts.” How predictable, and how pathetic!
Even some conservative and moderate Democrats held back, afraid that the Green New Deal was taking the Democratic Party “too far to the left.” Which begs the question: What’s so “far left” about high-speed rail, renewable sources of energy or expanding the phenomenally successful Medicare program? But which also shows how out of step Republicans and some establishment Democrats are with where the American people are today. The Green New Deal may be the most popular government program people have never heard of. In a recent survey by Yale and George Mason Universities, 82 percent of Americans said they’d heard nothing about the Green New Deal, yet 81 percent, including 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans, said they either strongly or somewhat endorsed its key provisions.
The American people are ready. It’s time to think big and bold. The Green New Deal may not be the best Congress can offer, but it sure beats a concrete wall.