The Media Research Center will happily scare you by promoting someone’s proposed astronomical cost for the New Green Deal:
- “How much would a Green New Deal cost? That’s the $93 trillion question some media outlets won’t ask.”– Julia A. Seymour, Feb. 28
- “[Meghan] McCain jumped in to grill the 2020 Democrat more specifically on what his party’s Green Deal actually costs and requires of average Americans. … ‘It would cost $93 trillion or to every person in this room, $600,000 for each of your households.'” — Kristine March, March 4
- “Colbert’s opening segment took a spin on Kermit the Frog’s legendary musical performance of “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” with a new version called, ‘It’s Not Easy Being The Green New Deal.’ The song features the legendary puppet defending Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s wingnut, multi-trillion dollar, socialist pipe dream.” — Gabriel Hays, March 13
- “The price of the Green New deal is estimated to cost in the “tens of trillions.” Shouldn’t that be a discussion point?” — Scott Whitlock, March 16
- “The plan could cost $93 trillion, according to estimates from the American Action Forum run by former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin.” — Seymour, March 19
Just one problem with that $93 trillion that the MRC is touting: it’s a bogus number.
As Media Matters documents, the American Action Forum — the organization that originiated the figure — is funded by fossil-fuel interests, who stand to lose under the Green New Deal and have a vested interest in denigrating it. And Politico notes that even AAF leader Holtz-Eakin, whom Seymour portrays as an authoritative figure and thus a reason the number should be believed as credible, admits the number is bogus because any precision in that great of a number is “illusory.” Further, much of that number is “based on assumptions about universal health care and jobs programs rather than the costs of transitioning to carbon-free electricity and transportation,” Politico writes. Further, even if one insists the number has value, it’s contrasted by a a United Nations estimate that even a modest rise in global temperatures could have a global cost of as much as $69 trillion from.
If the MRC was honest with its readers, it would inform them that the Green New Deal cost it’s been touting has no basis in reality. But we know it has no interest in correcting the record after it spreads fake news.