Applying Physics (And Some Math) To The Green New Deal - Why It Can't Work As Set Out

To read the financial press (WSJ, Financial Times) the last few weeks it is evident a form of hysteria has seized the assorted columnists, e.g. Holman Jenkins Jr.

Big Names Bake a Climate Pie in the Sky - WSJ

and editors (e.g. "$1, 973 LEDs and the Green New Deal', WSJ p. A14 Feb.16-17)

Some in the more reactionary enclaves of the media have even warned that if such a Green New Deal comes to pass, Americans will be left with no burgers or pork chops to eat, and will have to bike to work given all cars will ne prohibited.  Amidst this hysteria is there a way to import some sense and a scientific perspective?  I believe so, and that's the purpose of this post.

First, let's turn once more to one of the more sensible and intelligent WSJ columnists, Greg Ip ('Upside Down Economics of Green New Deal', February 14, p. A2).  Among the points noted by Mr. Ip:

- "The premise of the Green New Deal is correct. While the world may not spomntaneously combust in 10 years, global C)2 emissions need to start dropping soon, by a lot - to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5 Celsius.

-- Because the private market has no incentive to reduce carbon emissions government intervention is necessary."

Given these two propositions are accepted by most insightful - intelligent citizens, what's the problem?  Ip again:

"Kevin Book, head of research at Clearview Energy Partners, estimates replacing 83% of the current U.S. energy generation that is not renewable with solar, wind and biomass, would cost $2.9 trillion - nearly a full year's tax revenue."

In other words, taxes would have to be raised and not just on the wealthy. Now, counterpoise these numbers with a recent U.N. report affirming that hitting the 1.5 C target would cost an average of $3.5 trillion per year through 2050.  This is nearly $1 trillion per year more than the current pledges from government.  But with such enormous demand, the bulk of the money will have to come from the private sector.  Mind you, there are already nibbles of energy efficient improvement (i.e. Walmart has installed more than 1.5 million LED light fixtures across more than 6,000 stores) but much more is needed.

Indeed, lost in the mix is just how much high quality, intense energy is actually needed to run the U.S. economy and industrial civilization overall.   Where will the energy come from to support an industrial-energy intense and consumptive civilization? You can’t just say “new non-fossil sources” and leave it at that. What new sources? Where? As Jay Hanson (www.dieoff.org) pointedly notes:

“The fact that our society can‘t survive on alternative energy should come as no surprise, because only an idiot would believe that windmills and solar panels can run bulldozers, elevators, steel mills, glass factories, electric heat, air conditioning, aircraft, automobiles, etc., AND still have enough energy left over to support a corrupt political system, armies, etc. Envision a world where freezing, starving people burn everything combustible -- everything from forests (releasing CO2; destroying topsoil and species); to garbage dumps (releasing dioxins, PCBs, and heavy metals); to people (by waging nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional war); and you have seen the future. “

But how correct is he?

One needs to process that different kinds of energy resources have fundamentally different "qualities". For example, a BTU of oil (oil before it is burnt) is fundamentally different than a BTU of coal. Oil has a higher energy content per unit weight and burns at a higher temperature than coal. It is also easier to transport, and can be used in internal combustion engines. A diesel locomotive wastes only one-fifth the energy of a coal-powered steam engine to pull the same train. Oil's many advantages provide 1.3 to 2.45 times more economic value per kilocalorie than coal.

This means you need to factor that increase in for coal  (OR - for any combination of non-fossil fuel sources) to get the same amount of work done.

Ditto with solar. Unlike energy derived from fossil fuels, energy derived from solar power is diffuse and also extremely intermittent: it varies constantly with weather or day/night. If a large city wants to derive a significant portion of its electricity from solar power, it must build fossil-fuel-fired or nuclear-powered electricity plants to provide backup for the times when solar energy is not available. Solar power has a capacity of about 20 percent. This means that if a utility wants to install 100 megawatts of solar power, they need to install 500 megawatts of solar panels. This makes solar power a prohibitively expensive and pragmatically poor replacement for the cheap and abundant fossil fuel energy our economy depends on, especially if one intends to use it operate missile factories.

H.T. Odum's solar "eMergy" (eMbodied energy) measures all of the energy (adjusted for quality) that goes into the production of a product. Odum's calculations show that the only forms of alternative energy that can survive the exhaustion (or replacement)  of fossil fuels are:  muscle, burning biomass (wood, animal dung, or peat), hydroelectric, geothermal in volcanic areas, and some wind electrical generation. Nuclear power could be viable if one could overcome the shortage of fuel. No other alternatives (e.g., solar voltaic) produce a large enough net sej to be sustainable. In short, there is no way out.

Further, Matt Savinar (Life After the Oil Crash) has shown that NONE of the alter-sources usually cited: from methane hydrates, from coal, from geothermal hot dry rock technology, from natural gas, from oil shales and tar sands, from secondary recovery of existing oil fields, and so on- will do squat to totally replace the energy now being consumed for our entire infrastructure, from powering a military-industrial complex with umpteen bombers, and now missile defense, plus more tanks for occupations and wars, not to mention sustaining growth in industries, new computers, maintaining the electrical power grid and building new nuclear reactors.

To further fix ideas and get into the more practical realm it is useful to cite  The Physicist's Desk Reference (Table C, p. 187, Energy Generation by Type) showing the most energy-intense uses (aggressive consumption category, I) for all forms of solar, geothermal and wind are projected to total only about 9 exajoules by next year.Thus, ALL the usual "green" alternatives are projected to barely add up to a blip on the energy "radar" .(Note:  1 EJ   = (10¹⁸) joules   J)

For reference, current yearly U.S. energy consumption is 94 EJ.. To put the numbers in a harsher perspective, any serious major effort to "decarbonize" the planet will require an amount of clean energy on the order of 100 trillion kilowatt-hours per year  or 360 EJ. To reach this target even within 3 decades the world's nations would need to add 3.3 trillion more kwh of clean energy every year. Solar and wind simply cannot scale up to that level in that time, so the only remaining form of energy - apart from fossil fuels - is nuclear and at least one climate scientist (James Hansen)  has recommended such incorporation . See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/05/top-climate-scientist-advocates-nuclear.html

All told, 220 reactors are currently being built or planned worldwide, with another 324 on the drawing board.  If replacing fossil fuels is a genuine goal, these reactors can't come onstream fast enough.

Leave out nuclear and how long it will take to get to a preponderance of renewables, even using Germany's high standard of adding 0.7 trillion kwh of clean energy per year. Well, even I the most optimistic scenario it would take close to 150 years - by which time this planet would be on the verge of being another Venus.

Given this, one thing the Green New Dealers don't need is flippant or stupid comments, remarks. As Michelle Goldberg noted in a recent NY Times op-ed Ocasio-Cortez’s staff certainly "made a huge mistake by releasing a flip document about the Green New Deal  resolution saying that it will be impossible to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes in 10 years" .  This was like a gift, providing Republicans an opening to claim that Democrats want to "ban hamburgers and air travel."

Conservo hack Michael Barone (writing in a rag called 'The Washington Examiner') actually claimed the Left - using the Green New Deal - wanted "to abandon even 20th century technology and go back to the 19th century" - including wagon trains and old style steam locomotives.

Of course,  that's nonsense but Dems must be savvy enough to grasp the Reeps and conservo nabobs will search for anything to paint the D progressive wing as commies, out of touch or nuts.  See, for example, my post from yesterday referencing a recent  WSJ  op-ed by Lance Morrow.  This preposterous  piece of twaddle inflated a number of minor progressive proposals (e.g. from the left's LGBTQ  and MeToo wings) to make it seem like progressives as a whole were planning the overthrow of Western civilization. Seriously!   

Meanwhile, Ms. Goldberg also cited. Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith who made a convincing case for a version of a Green New Deal that emphasized funding the development and export of green technologies and also included a carbon tax and carbon tariffs. The United States, after all, is responsible for only about 14 percent of current global greenhouse gas emissions.   But in a hypothetical future where America became a leader on climate, it would probably have to use economic incentives to get other CO2 spewing nations to cooperate. 

But all of this may merely be dodging the core issue: Can alternative sources of energy support this nation's energy demands in 10 or even 20 years?    The $64 question is: Can adequate alternative energy sources fill in most of the gaps, say when the last break -even oil is exhausted and only the very expensive to drill form remains? It’s all very well to speculate and ruminate that future energy needs will be met, but the question remains: HOW? When one does the math, and in particular pays attention to the 2nd law of thermodynamics (the entropy law)  and the ‘net energy equation’. At the heart of all salient considerations to replace fossil fuels - especially oil -  is the latter (cf. Physics Today, July 2004, p. 51)

Q (net) = Q (PR) – [Q (op) + E/T]

To fix ideas:  The planet was endowed with roughly  3,000 billion barrels of oil – of which we’ve consumed 1,700 billion barrels but only  300 billion barrels of relatively cheap oil remains (assuming increased deep sea floor drilling), after which 500 billion barrels of “break-even” oil remains.  Arrival at the latter phase means the EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) is close to zero. In effect, for break-even oil one would find Q(net) = 0

Thus, there is no net gain in energy given the quantity accessed is basically the same as that which must be used to obtain it.  This is what we are approaching now with shale and tar sands oil.  Here's another alarming aspect:  As that usable, higher EROEI oil is depleted how much renewable energy in the form of solar, geothermal, wind, etc. is needed to replace it to sustain our industrial society which also depends on an extensive military component?  It turns out a lot and vastly more than is currently  coming onstream - if nuclear energy is omitted.

Here's an even more sobering wake up call:   The stage is set to add 25 % MORE humans by 2050, topping off at nearly  9.5  billion.  This will necessitate - if we still plan to retain solar in the mix - converting an area the size of Europe to solar panel arrays. In addition, to feed all those hungry mouths, we will need to add an agricultural area the size of the whole continent of South America - especially given how the eating habits of Chinese and Indians have now altered to become more "American" (e.g. much more meat, like steaks, etc. - which re-acquire vastly more water and resources to produce)

The bottom line here isn't very pretty. It reads like this: Alternative energy sources - no matter how many are incorporated - will provide only a very marginal, fractional benefit unless:

a) humans majorly reduce their birth rates around the world, and

b) Our concentrated energy use society is rendered much more delocalized and diffused so that it can better adapt to the diffuse,  lower quality capacity of alternative energy sources.

I suspect neither of these will occur, meaning that as we approach the climate change critical stage, there will be literal hell to pay and no real "Green" salvation to spare us.   The most alarming recent revelation concerns the much more rapid warming of the oceans.   Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published  in the journal Nature  noted:

"If you look at the IPCC 1.5C, there are big challenges ahead to keep those targets, and our study suggests it's even harder because we close the window for those lower pathways. A warmer ocean will hold less oxygen, and that has implications for marine ecosystems.  There is also sea level, if you warm the ocean more you will have more thermal expansion and therefore more sea level rise."

The critical element is the fact that as waters get warmer they release more carbon dioxide and oxygen into the air.  As Dr. Resplandy made clear:

"When the ocean warms, the amount of these gases that the ocean is able to hold goes down,"  

Adding:

"So what we measured was the amount lost by the oceans, and then we can calculate how much warming we need to explain that change in gases."

Lastly:

"We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted.  But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already".

Given ocean temperatures are rising more rapidly than previously calculated, that  leaves nations even less time to dramatically cut the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide. That is, assuming there is any hope in limiting global warming to the ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century.  Many newer results show this is overly optimistic and neglecting other factors in play, e.g.

Climate report understates threat

The takeaway here?  While the Green New Deal definitely sounds promising on its face,  doing the math shows that it simply can't achieve what it claims to in the time - say 12 years.  Certainly not without massive infusions of nuclear power.  This doesn't mean doing nothing, but the humans on this planet have to understand that they are the source of most of the greenhouse gases. 

Cutting human numbers, despite what the loopy economists say (i.e. regarding the need for "more economic growth") is a major first step.  That will mean less CO2 churned out, by fewer autos and coal -fired plants, and less need to chop down more forests. It also means not allowing human numbers to reach anywhere near 9 billion in 30 years. We need, in other words, massive  birth control expansion as well as massive nuclear energy expansion. And that will be just to contain the most dire effects of a rapidly warming planet.

There are bound to be affirmative voices that the Green New Deal can work (see links below), but I'd challenge any of them to do the same physics and math and still claim the plan's objectives can be attained in the given time frame. Especially if nuclear energy is not part of the solution!

See also:

Energy Policy | Environmental Policy

Climate Change Is Scary—Not the Green New Deal

And:

Economic Policy | Energy Policy | Environmental Policy

Answering the Attacks on the Green New Deal

by John Feffer | February 21, 2019 - 6:58am | permalink

— from Foreign Policy In Focus

Trump's Shutdown End "Deal" : A Cynical PR Stunt Worth No More Than An Ounce Of Doggie Lickspittle

Dotard spewing bollocks to spin  his phony, one-sided "deal" earlier today.

Federal workers trying to get the pissant's  attention

How many times before the American people wake up to the fact they're being played by the noisome con man and criminal masquerading as a president?   How many, for example, will be intelligent and percipient enough to grasp that what Trump called a "negotiation" when he announced his BS with fanfare earlier, was nothing of the sort?   It can't be a negotiation if it was never discussed beforehand  (and agreed to) with the other side (the Dems) and simply dropped in a contrived photo-op.

That is what actually transpired today, so House Speaker  Nancy Pelosi  was quite correct to reject it even before the PR optics show began - given she KNEW Dotard never discussed it with her. He  just dropped it into the public media pool in his latest grandstanding.  

After waiting with bated breath what did we see and hear?  In exchange for temporary concessions on the status of threatened migrant groups (Dreamers, Haitians), Donnie Dotard doubled down on his demand for a border wall and $5.7 billion to fund it while offering a thin smokescreen of 'protections' in return.  This barely a day after setting up a website to get donors to send virtual "bricks" to Pelosi and the Dems.

Now, let's clear up several layers of this bullshit:

1) A budget funding bill was already approved when the Reeptards stilll held the House back in December. That allocation included exactly $1.6 billion to fund Trump's stupid mythical wall. If Trump and the Repukes didn't like it they ought to have changed the allocated funding THEN and demanded more. They  didn't. Oh, and Dotard Donnie was ok with it too, until he heard withering criticism from the Right wing screech gallery, including Ann Coulter and Lush Limburger. Then he sought to change the terms and build his "wall" to appease them.

2) Trump's pseudo generosity supposedly gives the Dreamers 3 years of deportation protection, i.e.  to remain secure in this country before being rousted in the night and offloaded back to Mexico. THREE YEARS!  Look, the Supreme Court already essentially delivered one whole year by not taking up a DACA case and leaving a lower court judgment in place - which already keeps the Dreamers safe for a year. So, in other words, Dotard is really offering only TWO years with his cynical ploy and in return for full wall funding (or at least that's what he says now, most of us with sense believe he will come back for more in a short time, especially if the Dems collapse) 

Equally bad, his "deal" only covers 700,000 of the 1.8 million Dreamers at risk. He's basically offering "half a loaf" in return for getting a full wall funding he never agreed to originally!


3)  This whole thing is just an elaborate dog and pony show for a captive audience (his degenerate base) when Mitch McConnell could stop this shutdown in two heartbeats, just by bringing the bills Nancy Pelosi already passed in the House to the Senate floor. The excuse Bitch gives that he can't do that unless Trump approves is pure, cockamamey BS of the ripest sort, and as one furloughed TSA worker put it earlier today "Just does an end run around the Constitution".   

But what did Bitch say today? Well that Dotard's offer "strikes a fair compromise".  As Janice put it, "What? Does this guppy- faced asshole really talk out of his ass and think out of there too?"  I had to correct her: He didn't talk out of his ass, he was an ass, as well as coward. This had prompted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to attempt to find him as announced on her instagram, with the hashtag  Where’sMitch ?

Given all the preceding it shouldn't take a Mensa member to figure out Trump is simply using this bottom basement pseudo deal in a PR photo op to put pressure on the Dems. This is in the hope it will alter the public opinion polls. So far, we know public opinion has Trump being blamed by nearly 55% to 39% for the shutdown. Also, for some weird reason, the Republicans in congress only get 5 percent blame. Go figure. 

But let's cut to the chase. Given Trump is offering NO permanent protection for the Dreamers - as he did in 2017- this farce is dead in the water.  Pelosi, Schumer et al were particularly incensed that Dotard’s offer merely extended "protections"  to Dreamers and T.P.S. recipients that he himself revoked.  

This is like a terrorist grabbing three family members and holding them hostage in return for $1 million, then asserting he will let them go for two weeks before kidnapping them again  - to hold for more ransom.  In this case, Trump is the terrorist, and he cannot be allowed to get away with this hostage taking and certainly not for this phony deal being offered, which was really a unilateral demand - not a negotiation.

As Senator Richard Blumenthal (CT) put it:

“I think it’s simply more fake promises raising false hopes. It will fool few Americans because it’s neither serious nor credible as a real remedy for Dreamers.”

Well, sir, I do hope it will fool only a "few" Americans and not alter the opinion polls to now blame Dems more than Trump and the Reeptardos. If that happens, Janice's suspicions that my countrymen are mostly "imbeciles" will be confirmed.  

As I wrote earlier , no matter how much devastating crap is going on with this gov't shutdown Trump must not be appeased.  Give in now, especially to a transparently cynical, self-serving and  bogus deal, and he will use the same ploy again and again.   Maybe next time for the debt ceiling coming up soon. 

As we also expected,  Trump's lapdog Pence-  briefing reporters after Dotard's 13 minute spiel-   said the speech reflected "a painstaking process of listening to lawmakers, including rank-and-file Democrats"   who made it clear they believed that protections for DACA and T.P.S. recipients must be included in a border security deal.

Only problem here? These "rank and file" Dems were not Schumer and Pelosi,  the only two with the power and standing to actually sign off on a given deal. Indeed, the only two with the real power to negotiate a deal that is equitable - which meant (and still does) permanent protections  -  not temporary, 2-year smokescreens.  Trump, though an "inexpressibly sad specimen" according to columnist George Will, nonetheless has enough sentience to know the game is soon ending and not in his favor, see. e.g.

Donald Trump

Trump Is Wounded, Bleeding, and Destined for a Steadfast Demise

by P.M. Carpenter | January 21, 2019 - 7:23am | 

Alas, the editorial board of The Washington Post has again revealed its Neoliberal DNA by trying to make a specious case to agree to the Dotard's cynical perfidy, e.g.

Make a deal. Save the dreamers.

What the WaPo's nabobs seem not to grasp (or maybe choose not to) is this "deal" isn't "saving" the Dreamers - certainly not all 1.8m of them-   only postponing their deportation for 3 years. 

Clarifying Ocasio -Cortez' $21 Trillion Pentagon Waste Gaffe

WaPo columnist Aaron Blake (Monday) continues the Post's  "Pinocchio" campaign against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)  now claiming she "has made a bigger splash than any freshman in the 116th Congress — in either the House or Senate."   Quickly adding that:

"And a big reason is an often-overzealous conservative effort to knock her down a few pegs. The congresswoman has put on a PR master class in using those efforts to build her profile and social media following. (Her retort to the overblown dancing-video kerfuffle last week has been viewed nearly 20 million times.)"

So what?  I have seen it and have no problems with it.  The conservos bellyaching needed a good slapping down and putting in their place anyway, and Alexandria delivered it.  Besides, it's not the conservos'  business to "knock her down a few pegs"  - or to dismiss her as a "commie" because she belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) like I do..  Blake then goes on:

"But she’s also shown a tendency to exaggerate or misstate basic facts. And her defense of this in a Sunday interview with “60 Minutes” was very bad. When Anderson Cooper confronted her with The Washington Post Fact Checker’s Four-Pinocchio verdict on her claim about $21 trillion in waste at the Pentagon, Ocasio-Cortez offered this (emphasis added):

COOPER: One of the criticisms of you is that-- that your math is fuzzy. The Washington Post recently awarded you four Pinocchios --

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Oh my goodness --

COOPER: -- for misstating some statistics about Pentagon spending?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.

COOPER: But being factually correct is important--

In the case of the $21 trillion, Ocasio-Cortez was suggesting that this was all Pentagon waste and that cleaning it up could pay for two-thirds of the estimated $32 trillion price tag for single-payer health care, which she and others are referring to as Medicare-for-all.

 

$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained,’" Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet that still appears on her timeline and has been shared more than 26,000 times. "$21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.”

Okay, I think it's time here to take a deep collective breath and inquire what Blake and the Post's "Pinocchio" designators are so worked up about.. In fact, it turns out Ms. Ocasio-Cortez main gaffe was simply conflating the magnitude of the Pentagon's accounting scams with actual money being available, i.e. for "Medicare for all'. This is based on the recent extensive investigative piece ('Exposing The Pentagon's  Massive Accounting Fraud',)  by David Lindorff, appearing in The Nation (Jan. 7, 2019, pp. 12- 16).  As Mr. Lindorff write (p. 13):

"As a result of the Pentagon's accounting shenanigans some $21 trillion - yes, trillion- worth of financial transactions cannot be accounted for. That number caught the eye of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez who tweeted )on Dec. 2) to her 1.47 million followers that this missing $21 trillion cold have been used to fund a Medicare for All program.

However....there is no $21 trillion pot of money hidden inside the Pentagon. what there has been instead is a systematic, long standing, unconstitutional effort by the Department of Defense to feed  phony numbers to Congress and thereby inflate the DOD's budget by billions of dollars each year.   NO one knows for sure, though informed estimates put it as high as $100 billion - not enough to fund Medicare for All but a good down payment on a Green New Deal..."

So there you have it: Ocasio-Cortez basically was over optimistic regarding the money available from the Pentagon's funny money accounting gimmicks. For example, one method entails laundering "one year money" pools into "five year money" pools.   The reason? The unspent money in the latter (longer ) pool doesn't have to be returned during the 5-year period.  The phony numbers arising are then referred to as "plugs"  (as in plugging a hole) by the Pentagon's money wonks and paper pushers.

As Lindorff puts it (p. 14):

"Such nippering can be repeated multiple times - according to one Pentagon budgeting veteran- 'until the funds become virtually untraceable'"

Of course, this deplorable fudging of budgets and accounts didn't just pop up recently. Former defense analyst Chuck Spinney  - as long ago as 2000 (on Bill Moyers' PBS NOW program)-  reported on the Pentagons' accounting gimmicks and 'plug' rackets to the extent of being unable to account for $1.1 trillion - at that time.

Enter now Thomas Hedges who reported for The Guardian  in March 2017 - after Trump proposed a $52 billion increase in military spending -  "the Pentagon has exempted itself without consequence for 20 years now, telling the Government Accountability Office that collecting and organizing the required information for a full audit is too costly and time-consuming."   

Exempted itself!?  Are you kidding me?  As Chuck Spinney pointed out on Bill Moyers' NOW program, if a gov't  agency declines fiscal accountability we are no longer a democracy because the agency or department is no longer accountable to the citizens - the taxpayers. It is then a law unto itself, and we are short steps from fascism.  Lindorff himself also references Spinney's previous efforts at examining the mess, i.e. :

"For Spinney, the Pentagon accounting fraud is deja vu all over again.  Back in the 1980s he and a handful of reform-minded colleagues exposed how the Defense Department used a similar accounting trick to inflate its spending and to accumulate money for 'off the books' programs. Spinney recalls: 'The DOD routinely overestimated inflation rates for weapons systems. When actual inflation turned out to be lower than the estimates, they did not return the excess funds to the Treasury as required by law. They slipped them into something called a merged surplus account. In that way the Pentagon was able to build up a slush fund of almost $50 billion, or about $120 billion in today's money."

OK, so Ocasio-Cortez basically erred by mixing up Pentagon slush fund money accrued from sleazy accounting with a total amount ($21 trillion) missing from the ledgers on account of such a ruse'.  But she's young and still learning, so should be forgiven. I warrant she didn't lie (with implies intention) but simply "shot from the hip" in not really investigating the fiscal mechanics behind the shady accounting using 'plugs'.  In other words, she's not guilty of "Pinnochios" but rather laziness.  After all, it's not that there doesn't exist ANY money from the Pentagon's accounting tricks for social uses, only it just isn't enough to support a Medicare for All program.   What we do know is right now there is a desperate need to provide a much wider social safety net, and we need to find any and all means - including higher taxes- to pay for it! 

See also:

Paul Buchheit

Article Tools E-mail | Print Comments (1)

Economic Policy

By the Best Definition, the Poverty Rate Should Be Tripled

by Paul Buchheit | January 8, 2019 - 6:26am | permalink

And:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | Media

How the Media’s Hidden Biases Feed the Right-wing Agenda

by Cody Fenwick | January 7, 2019 - 7:21am | permalink

28-Year Old Democratic Socialist Beats The Dem Establishment & Explains How Medicare For All Is Feasible

Dems' latest Wunderkind, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,  who won big in New York's 14th Congressional District.

As a Democratic Socialist - member of the Democratic Socialists of America  myself- I was elated on learning Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  - who knocked off a 10 term establishment Dem- is also a member.  Incredibly, Ocasio-Cortez was working behind a bar 9 months ago and had helped start Flats Fix, a tacos and craft cocktail spot in Manhattan, before launching her political career.  We're now aware that  the  outcome has been to send Rep. Joseph Crowley down to defeat and an early, unexpected retirement.  Heck, maybe he can get a new gig as a D.C. lobbyist.

That was despite the Dem establishment's candidate having an 18 to 1 advantage in campaign spending.   An 18 to 1 advantage and Crowley lost by 57% - 43%,  which is not exactly close.

In May, encouraged by the activists she’d been working with,  including a group from the Democratic Socialists of America, the 28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez filed to challenge Crowley to represent New York's 14th Congressional District.

Most of her limited $300,000 in campaigns funds were spent on bilingual posters, which she said were designed to look “revolutionary," and her viral campaign video, created by a socialist team called Means of Production.   I suspect it was the video which had most impact.

Wifey had informed me of Ocasio-Cortez's upset win the night before, but my initial reaction (before I even learned she was a DSA member)  was more or less ho-hum: Another newbe woman, ousting an old line Dem (likely in hock to lobbyists) and maybe just a flash in the pan. So what's new?

Yesterday morning all that changed when I watched her interview on 'Morning Joe' and beheld a lively,  intelligent and articulate woman who was super confident and could summarize her basic message in 30 seconds. (As co-host Mika Brzezinski put it: "Take note, Dems! You need to reduce your two to three minute messages!")

What most impressed me was how she answered Willie Geist's question of how she would pay for a  “Medicare for All” program, not to mention massive forgiveness of student loan debt.   Geist said those sounded like "endless wrapped Christmas  gifts". She didn't miss a beat and said we needed to re-examine those tax cuts which had created a $1.4 trillion deficit and went mainly to corporations and the wealthiest.  She emphasized that $400 billion of those giveaway cuts could have forgiven all the existing, outstanding student loans in default.

She said all that was needed is the political courage to act.  Of course, that is where the proverbial  bear sits with his buckwheat. 

For some time now I have been hammering on the tax issue and explaining how all the programs regarded as "pie in the sky" by the Right and Dem Neoliberals  -  from Medicare for all, to free college,  to expanding Social Security-   can be achieved by re-ordering priorities.  To attend to all of these, Ocasio-Cortez' solution of redirecting tax cut money is basically correct, as I had earlier brought up the German model, i.e. where budget surpluses are plowed back into the commons and used for social insurance enhancement.   See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/do-americans-really-want-big-government.html

The question posed in the post header was 'Do Americans Really Want Big Government?'  And the answer embodied in Ocasio-Cortez' model is that they do.   In the link above I cited Germany as an example nation, where our long time friends Reinhardt and Elli live, adding:

 "Germany has among the highest taxes in the world and a habit of heavy state spending."

But can most Americans live with that?  Because for sure what Alexandria is proposing are not freebies, nor can they be paid for merely by redirecting tax cuts. No, because the tax cuts themselves need to be halted entirely so as not to create added deficits - which the scoundrels of the Right will use to cut existing programs.

Thus, it is critical to not only deep six tax cuts, but to increase tax revenues. As Megan McCardle recently put it in a Denver Post op-ed ('What's Really Obstructing Left Wing Dreams'):

"The American Left has developed a fantasy that a large expansion of the welfare state can be financed by taxing only the rich....In fact European welfare states pay for themselves by taxing ordinary people very heavily."

How heavily? UP to 40- 45% in Germany even higher in Denmark, Sweden. McCardle references the top tax bracket would kick in at $45,000/ year if we adopted Scandinavian standards.  But then those nations enjoy vastly superior civilized care levels, as opposed to survival of the fittest mandates. See e.g.

• Oprah got perfect response from Danish woman on their social welfare state 

For sure, current American marginal tax rates - certainly for the three middle income quintiles- would need to go up dramatically. (It is likely the best policy to leave the lowest quintile alone and eligible each year for the earned income tax credit). The least tax rate for the next quintile would be 25 percent, and graduating from there to 45 or 50 percent. Say, for $75,000 - 100,000 earners.  (High earners would take 50- 75% tax hits, in proportion to their total incomes, including investments)

Where McCardle is correct is that it's preposterous that we can fund every proposal by "grabbing the same few pieces of high income tax capacity".  No, most sensible people - even Democratic Socialists - realize that's not possible. Which was why many of us strenuously objected extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class. E.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/08/democrats-must-stop-playing-politics.html

Over many separate posts I had noted that respected sources including The Financial Times had repeatedly pointed out that merely taxing the rich could not support social programs.   And that's absolutely correct. Even the Repukes know higher taxes are the life's blood for preserving Social Security and Medicare, which is why they are always ready to cut them after passing giant tax cut packages.  This isn't rocket science.

Where McCardle is wrong is in asserting we are daft to want to eliminate the cap (FICA) on Social Security taxes.  No, my argument - and I would hope Ocasio-Cortez'-  is that we need that elimination because the existing system benefits mainly the wealthy who don't need Social Security income.  Besides, if taxes are raised to German or Scandinavian levels, Americans need to be able to depend on expanded Social Security benefits - which eliminating the FICA cap would provide. 

But again, are Americans willing to go this route. According to WSJ columnist William Galston ( 'Americans Want Big Government') they are.  Galston cited a poll that showed  58 percent of Americans (the "highest share ever recorded")  agreed that:

"the government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people"

In addition, Galston cited a Pew research poll from last April which showed that for the first time in eight years:

"Americans favored a larger government offering more services over a smaller government providing fewer services."  

This is all very commendable but many of us who are Democratic Socialists also want to see  how our fellow citizens react when faced with actual tax increases on a German or Scandinavian scale.

I believe both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I can agree that the jury is still out. I, for one, am not yet convinced most Americans can break free of their addiction to tax cuts.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/natasha-hakimi-zapata/79882/how-a-socialist-latina-millennial-beat-a-wall-street-favorite

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/79881/how-to-cover-a-revolution