1. GND would require EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN to work , not just the currently unemployed
Garcia 19
(Leslie, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/readers-react-to-the-editorial-boards-green-new-deal/2019/02/28/9f72a302-3b77-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html , 2-28)
Much of the FAQ is devoted to the showier stuff, the policy equivalent of gold plumbing fixtures and Calacatta marble walls: replacing air travel with high-speed rail; junking every automobile with an internal-combustion engine; making affordable public transportation available to every single American (presumably including those who live hours from the nearest town?); replacing the electric grid with something smarter; meeting “100% of power demand through clean and renewable energy sources”; and — I swear I’m not making this up — providing economic security to people who are “unwilling to work.” This, too, is supposed to happen within only a decade, or thereabouts.
Going by my experience at energy-efficiencizing, I’d estimate that the Ocasio-Cortez plan would require the entire population of the United States — or at least those who aren’t “unwilling to work” — to drop whatever they’re doing and start training to become insulation installers, HVAC technicians, electricians, automotive engineers or demolition experts. But even a quarter of that effort doesn’t really seem very practical. Nor politically enticing. The only historical operation even approaching such scale was the U.S. mobilization for World War II, and unfortunately for Green New Dealers, the coal industry probably won’t cooperate by bombing Pearl Harbor.