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- The goals of the Green New Deal
The Green New Deal aims to boost the American economy by creating millions of new jobs. These will be in multiple sectors, including (but not limited to) transportation, agriculture, and energy.
The argument
One key part of the Green New Deal is its job guarantee. The Federal Government would accomplish this through employment initiatives. Historically, federally created jobs came from infrastructure projects (such as post office buildings' creation during President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal). Similarly, the Green New Deal would create jobs by utilizing infrastructure – the overhaul of the American transportation system – and in the field of science. This includes coding, engineering, and maximizing the potential of hybrid technology. A jobs guarantee would also help America’s marginalized communities that see higher unemployment levels. The Green New Deal could help these citizens obtain a stable career that pushes them up the socio-economic ladder.
Premises
Counter-arguments
A jobs guarantee – one of the many positions within the Green New Deal – is unrealistic and hurts already existing industries. The implementation of this proposal means the end of the current oil and gas industries. These workers would then need to be retrained in order to find employment in a new industry under the Green New. Additionally, a job guarantee would put the Federal Government further into debt. They would have to borrow from the Federal Reserve and/or foreign countries to float such an expenditure – a risky proposition. The jobs guarantee in the Green New Deal is unfeasible.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The comparison misdescribes both schemes: the New Deal ran specific hiring programmes rather than guaranteeing employment as a right, so citing it does not establish a precedent for the mechanism proposed here. [Rejecting P2] Transport overhaul and technical work require particular skills, and the premise does not connect the jobs created to the workers displaced — the counter's objection is that oil and gas employees would need retraining the guarantee does not describe. [Rejecting P3] Higher unemployment in a community does not mean the new jobs would reach it: siting, credentials and training determine who is hired, and no mechanism is offered that would direct the work toward the people named.