The Green New Deal will increase the deficit in the United States

The argument

Critics of the Green New Deal begin from the fiscal position it would be added to. As of 2020 the United States had a deficit of 3.1 trillion dollars, meaning the government was already spending far more in a year than it took in, and closing that gap requires borrowing. The proposal, put forward by Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, is estimated on this account to cost the government approximately 10 trillion dollars. The inference is arithmetical before it is political. A programme of that size cannot be funded from a surplus that does not exist; it would be funded by borrowing on top of borrowing already under way, and so it would balloon the deficit rather than merely sit beside it. Nor is the cost confined to the years in which it is incurred, since borrowing carries forward as debt that later budgets have to service. Whatever the merits of the programme's goals, opponents argue, a commitment of this magnitude has to be counted against a ledger that is already deeply in deficit. The second cost falls on households rather than on the federal budget, and critics say it is easily overlooked precisely because it never appears in the federal total. Converting how energy is produced and used would raise energy bills for the average household across the country, and families would separately carry the expense of moving to new and costly energy sources, replacing equipment and systems that currently work. Those outlays are not optional for the people who face them, and they weigh most heavily on households with the least room to absorb them. Taken together, the argument runs, the Green New Deal would enlarge an already substantial United States deficit while raising what American families pay directly, and that double cost is one of the proposal's central drawbacks.

Premises

Counter-arguments

While there is no denying that the Green New Deal's upfront costs would increase the United States' deficit, the long-term benefits would expand the US economy over the years and offset those deficit-increasing costs. By the United States making these changes alone, world expenses related to climate change would be reduced by approximately 3.3 trillion dollars annually. Additionally, the Green New Deal would net two million jobs in the United States. That would lead to Americans having more money in their pocketbooks and more spending, which would boost the American economy and reduce the deficit.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The two figures are not comparable. A single year's deficit and the multi-year cost of a programme are different quantities, and the argument places them side by side without a timeframe for either. [Rejecting P2] Spending adds to a deficit only net of what it returns, and the premise counts costs while counting no revenue, growth or avoided expenditure — which is the counter-argument's objection. [Rejecting P3] Higher energy bills and conversion costs are asserted without figures, and they are a separate claim from the deficit: a cost borne by households is not a cost to the federal balance sheet.