According to Paul Krugman and David Roberts, government guarantees of high-paying jobs in clean industry, free health care, and so on are what is required to sell the GND to Congress and the general public. Krugman refers to the concept as a “Christmas tree.” Is his tactical judgment correct?
Not exactly.
I have no objection to Christmas trees as such, but this one won’t work. To illustrate the point, imagine that you are a worker in the oil industry making, say, $80,000 a year. A Democrat approaches you and tells you that your job has to disappear to save the planet, but that you will be given a new job paying $15 per hour installing solar panels for the government as compensation. Does that mollify you? Are you buying into the GND concept at this point?
Of course not. You have no faith in what you consider to be a “socialist” piece of legislation, and you grumble that climate change is just a device by which the far left is attempting to assume control of the economy.
The GND, as it is being sold, has no chance. I agree with its proponents that subsidies and regulations have to be part of the package, along with a carbon tax. Some of this is possible under the current system, assuming Democratic control of the White House. The bottom line, however, is that the GND has to be packaged as a way of encouraging innovation and boosting the economy, not creating the socialist Jerusalem. That in turn means that sober businessmen, not Al Gore style evangelists, have to be the salesmen for the plan to get any public traction.