Republicans Who Voted for the Trump Tax Cuts Are Now Very Worried About the Cost of the Green New Deal

A House hearing on climate change’s economic effects became a debate on the Green New Deal.

Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, in 2018.Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP

When House Democrats convened a hearing Tuesday morning to examine the potential impacts of climate change, they wanted to highlight the potential costs of ignoring the problem. “This is a hearing on the future of our country, covering a topic we cannot afford to ignore,” House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said at the start. But the Republicans on the committee wanted to keep the conversation focused on a narrower topic: the costs associated with the passage of a Green New Deal.

“Instead of talking about a budget…we’re here to discuss a $93 trillion proposal,” Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) said of the Green New Deal. Yarmuth replied that the hearing was not about the Green New Deal, an aggressive proposal to avert  climate change using government resources, touted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). 

“What is their proposal to address climate change? The previously mentioned Green New Deal, which more than half of the Democrats on this committee have sponsored,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said. “The plan would be very effective in destroying American agriculture the way we know it today.”

The Republicans on the budget committee had signaled ahead of time that they were planning to divert the hearing into a reckoning on the Green New Deal. “Billed as a proposal to address climate change,” the Republicans wrote in an announcement ahead of the hearing, “in actuality, the GND focuses primarily on unrelated and prohibitively expensive government-run programs. (The Democrats’ hearing document, meanwhile, doesn’t even mention the Green New Deal.)

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said at the hearing that she’s a “proud supporter” of the Green New Deal. Thereafter, Republicans and some Democrats continued to take the bait, adding their own two cents about the Green New Deal. For example, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), referring to Jayapal’s statement, said, ”This is a good opportunity for us to explore how these ideas fundamentally and practically won’t work, in addition to their stunning cost.”

The focus on the costs of proposals like the Green New Deal to fight climate change often deflected from the stated purpose of the hearing: to learn about the economic impact of climate change itself. “With all due respect to the people who want to focus on one proposal,” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said, “I want to focus on the people who are actually impacted.”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate