Like the New Deal, but better

Re “The wrong kind of recycling,” Opinion, Jan. 8

In his dismissal of the “Green New Deal” proposed by Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez (D-N.Y.), Jonah Goldberg missed the big points for trivial ones.

The large spending programs following the Great Depression vindicated the proponents of an expanded role for government. Evidence abounds that economies fail and abuses of the environment expand in societies where government’s role as a watchdog and spender is excessively curtailed.

Green spending is as effective a boost to incomes and quality of life as war spending, and without the negative consequences of armed conflict. The art of politics is to take ideas that work and place them in a contemporary context, as Ocasio-Cortez has done.

The Green New Deal is a compelling reassertion that environmental initiatives create jobs and boost the economy just as well as war spending, but with far more desirable results.

S. Craig Justice

Tujunga The writer is a retired professor of economics.

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Goldberg complains that the Green New Deal recycles ideas from a movement that prefers an authoritarian organization of domestic affairs. He ignores that a basic goal of the Green New Deal and of progressives in general is greater participation of everyday Americans in deciding the issues that shape their lives.

We see our society moving toward domination by wealth and power. Job and retirement security are things of the past. Looming above all is climate change and the imperative to get off fossil fuels.

We are dealing poorly with these challenges. Why not take an unbiased look at a Green New Deal? Grace Bertalot

Anaheim ::

Goldberg is more interested in pedantry than punditry. His column avoids any relevant context with regard to Ocasio-Cortez’s actual proposal.

It is on a level equivalent to that of the grammar police that plague social media. Gary Gegan

Culver City