Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff said the recent Green New Deal resolution isn’t about giving more power to government — it’s about “redistributing power to workers.”
“Wrong take,” Saikat Chakrabarti tweeted in response to a column on the Green New Deal by The New York Times’s David Brooks.
“It’s about redistributing power to workers and frontline/marginalized communities,” Chakrabarti tweeted Tuesday. “The government acts as a lender and investor in projects, but the resolution is actually very clear about creating community and worker wealth/ownership.”
Wrong take. It’s about redistributing power to workers and frontline/marginalized communities. The government acts as a lender and investor in projects, but the resolution is actually very clear about creating community and worker wealth/ownership. https://t.co/slq6glFcMZ
— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) February 12, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution garnered more than 60 co-sponsorships in the House, and Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey’s companion bill in the Senate has nine co-sponsors, including 2020 presidential hopefuls. (RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez Bungled Green New Deal’s Release. Her Staff Took Its Webpage Offline)
The text of the resolution calls for meeting all our energy needs with “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” as well as renovating every building in the country within 10 years, and vastly expanding social programs to include federal job guarantees and universal health care.
Republicans derided the resolution as “socialist,” but the media seemed to rally around Ocasio-Cortez after her office botched the initial rollout of the Green New Deal.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) addresses immigration rights activists during a rally calling for “permanent protections for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders” in front of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
Brooks argued in a Monday column that, if passed, the Green New Deal “would definitely represent the greatest centralization of power in the hands of the Washington elite in our history.”
Green New Deal supporters put their “faith in the guiding wisdom of the political elite,” which rarely works out, Brooks wrote.
The columnist also poked fun at the botched rollout of the Green New Deal.
“In an alienated America, efforts to decentralize power are more effective and realistic than efforts to concentrate it in the Washington elite,” Brooks wrote. “The great paradox of progressive populism is that it leads to elitism in its purist form.”
Chakrabarti, who spent the weekend doing damage control over the Green New Deal’s rollout, didn’t agree with Brooks’s characterization of his boss’s signature legislation.
“The reason the Federal Government is involved is it is the only force capable of providing the size and speed of investment necessary to create such a transformative change in the time required,” Chakrabarti tweeted before recommending Brooks read a list of anti-capitalist books.
The reason the Federal Government is involved is it is the only force capable of providing the size and speed of investment necessary to create such a transformative change in the time required.
— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) February 12, 2019
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