Dems Climate Plans Costly | Friends of Science Calgary

[Friends of Science editor’s note: The USA is Canada’s largest trading partner and Republican President Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Thus, it is of interest to Friends of Science Society readers to understand events and proposed policies south of the border.]

I rarely comment on the politics of foreign countries, but like many other Canadians I have been struck by the intensity of the presidential election campaign taking place in the United States. Much of the intensity, and apparent ill will, derives from the perceived personality and ethical qualities of the candidates This often seems to crowd out discussion about the comparative merits of the platforms on which each is running.

A political party’s platform is the only place that the voter can go to obtain a relatively comprehensive statement of what it would do if granted power by the electorate. A platform is not a guarantee of what will be done, as a party once in office may find itself constrained by all sorts of forces and constitutional arrangements. A platform sometimes may be deliberately vague, and leave out factors to which the party prefers to avoid drawing attention. It is, however, a set of promises about what the party will try to do, and whether it likes it or not, the legitimate standard against which the public can justifiably assess its subsequent performance. In a properly functioning democratic society, in other words, it is not something to be ignored or belittled.

During the recently televised debate between the candidates, the moderators asked questions about whether a Democratic Party Administration would implement a “Green New Deal”. During the campaigning for the Democratic Party leadership, different versions of a Green New Deal were endorsed by the candidates. Some of these included not just a profound reorientation of United States energy and environmental policies but also extremely ambitious promises with respect to tax reform, health, education, immigration and social welfare policies and spending. Some of these policies could have significant impacts on Canada.

Joe Biden, the Presidential candidate, subsequently tried to distance himself from the term “Green New Deal”, leaving the U.S. public and foreign observers like those of us in Canada to wonder what is really at stake. In a search for clarity, I went to the final text of the Democratic Party’s platform approved in August, 2020, and I selected from it the items that, in my view, may have a very large impact on the U.S. economy and/or public finances. The highlights are summarized in the following four-page document. In it, I have generally stayed as close as possible to the text of the platform, adding notes where I thought it useful to explain why the matter may have important economic or financial implications.

Based on this review, I would make four general observations.

The public debate about whether or not Joe Biden supports the “Green New Deal” is a rhetorical distraction. As is obvious from the text of the platform, the Democrats are committed to making “climate change” the centre of US public policy. They have embraced goals that will dramatically increase the cost of energy services while reducing their supply and reliability. These goals are unrealistic, extremely expensive and probably unattainable. Moreover, they rest on mistaken premises about what the rest of the world will do to transform its energy use.

The platform foresees a vast expansion of publicly-funded services in the health, education and welfare fields. The underlying premise appears to be that there are no limits to the extent to which the U.S. federal taxpayer should pay for increased services to all who are deemed to be disadvantaged in some way.

The platform promises an open-doors policy for both legal and illegal immigrants, including extending the benefits of the much-enriched social services regime to them.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the platform makes no reference to, or takes any account of, the financial and economic costs of delivering on the platform. There is no doubt in my mind that the costs of the climate policies alone would run into the many trillions of dollars. The result would almost certainly harm the prospects for new infrastructure for the production and transportation of hydrocarbons.

There are, interestingly, only the vaguest references to taxes. The message should be very clear between the lines: if the Democratic Party wins the U.S. national elections, taxes there are going up – a lot.

THE 2020 U.S DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM

        COMMITMENTS WITH MAJOR ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL IMPACTS

Introduction

On August 18, 2020, the Democratic National Convention approved a platform recommended by the party’s Platform Committee. The platform is over 90 pages long and much of it is a series of statements concerning the values and objectives of the party. There are, however, several places where the document states fairly clearly the party’s intentions to take actions that could reasonably be defined as “commitments”. I have read through the document to identify the commitments that appear, on the surface at least, to have significant economic and/or financial implications.

The platform does not contain any estimate of what these commitments will cost, either in financial or economic terms. In summarizing them, I will simplify the language used, but provide a reference to the page number so that anyone interested can see for himself or herself the precise wording of the commitment.

The following summary follows the same organization of headings as is found in the platform itself.

Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy

A Democratic Party Administration will:

• Ensure workers are guaranteed at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for all workers and family units to recover from childbirth or child adoption. (page 16)
• Enact universal, high-quality pre-K programs for three- and four-year-old’s. (page 16)
• Install 500,000 public charging stations for electric vehicles. (page 17)
• Ensure that domestic sourcing requirements are included an any future infrastructure legislation. (page 17)
• Oppose any policy that promotes the privatization of public services or infrastructure. Page 18)
• Seek to make the U.S. agricultural sector net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. (page 19)
• Strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard (that requires prescribed use of ethanol in motor fuels) and supporting E15 blends (which damage engines). (page 19)
• Create a new tax credit of up to $15,000 to help first-time homebuilders and make the tax credit refundable and advanceable so buyers can get assistance at the time of purchase. (page 21)
• Raise corporate taxes (by which amount is not specified). (page 22)
• Raise estate taxes back to the historical norm (prior to 2018, the estate tax exemption was $5.5 million; the Trump Administration raised the exemption to $11.1 million). (page 22)

Achieving Universal Affordable Health Care