Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has a new ad implying we should be more like China. It isn’t exactly political gold, even in a liberal state like hers.
But what is especially ironic is that a lot of the things China is doing to “modernize” and promote economic growth are things that should be despised by the progressive movement — things that Warren would presumably oppose doing in order to make America more productive.
Those new power plants in China are run on coal — which the EPA is trying to regulate out of use. Those new roads and bridges are built by businesses using extremely cheap — and allegedly forced — labor. Proper zoning, environmental impact, human cost? — these things are ignored by China, while being (by extension?) lauded by Warren.
And never mind regulations — China cuts corners. As the Wall Street Journal reported last year,
July’s rail tragedy—in which two bullet trains collided during a storm, sending some cars plunging 65 feet from elevated tracks—is tarnishing China’s effort to portray the project as technologically advanced and safety-minded. Among other things, the Ministry of Railways chose not to install lightning rods and surge protectors on some high-speed rail lines even as an industry association recommended doing so on major infrastructure projects, He Jinliang, director of China’s National Lightning Protection Technology Standard Committee, said in July.
(Emphasis mine.)
What is more, many of these grand projects secure their funding via bribes and cronyism.
Warren, it seems, admires anything that will make her economic vision of bigger government look more appetizing — even if that entails ignoring everything else she stands for.