In support of the absurdly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — which has passed the US House of Representatives and is currently under consideration in the Senate — the fossil fuel front group Americans for Prosperity has launched an equally absurd national advertising campaign. Their latest missive targeted the Green New Deal (GND):
Some things are simple.
More money in your family’s wallet: good; wasting trillions on Biden’s Green New Deal handouts: not good.
Lowering tax bills for hard-working families: good; reckless spending on green energy fantasies: not good.
Washington taking less of your money: good; green energy scams, ripping off tax-payers: not good.
It really is simple. Eliminating Joe Biden’s Green New Deal helps pay for President Trump’s tax cuts.
This attack on the GND — one which has been echoed by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans over the past four months — is both curious and revealing. It is curious because the GND — an initiative that would have tethered a federal jobs program to measures aimed at climate mitigation and environmental justice, as well as several far-reaching social democratic projects, like Medicare and Housing for All and the PRO Act — never passed into law.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was passed, sought to mitigate climate change primarily through tax credits to corporations and middle-class consumers, with ample concessions to oil and gas. The moderate thrust of the IRA, of course, did nothing to dampen the Right’s opposition — every Republican in Congress voted against it.
What is revealing is that in the immediate aftermath of the IRA’s passage, the Right framed the policy as an attack on the American worker. Arguing that the policy would raise energy prices and aggravate inflation, Congressman Jason Smith concluded that “working-class Americans cannot afford it and should not have to live with it.”
This basic argument has continued over the…
Auteur: John Hultgren
