AOC Wants You to Take a Train, But She Spent 7 Times More in Plane Travel Than on Amtrak
The Green New Deal has been making headlines and has been picked up as a new talking point by a number of Democrats.
Even some Democratic announced and expected 2020 presidential candidates have begun touting the plan, first publicly unveiled last week by freshman Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Naturally, she painted it as being an “example to the world.”
.@AOC unveils #GreenNewDeal: “Today is also the day that we choose to assert ourselves as a global leader in transitioning to 100% renewable energy and charting that path… We should do it because we are an example to the world.” https://t.co/2wVPSEx6SK pic.twitter.com/a6AG8TWtPK
— The Hill (@thehill) February 7, 2019
If this deal is something AOC truly believes in, so much so that she wants to institute it across America, it should be something she adheres to herself. Otherwise, she would just be a hypocrite trying to push on Americans something she doesn’t even believe in enough for herself to live by.
One of the things the Green New Deal calls for is for air travel to be replaced with the use of rail travel.
So, what kind of example is Ocasio-Cortez setting when it comes to conducting her own travel by rail rather than air?
Her campaign filed a report with the FEC. There are 2,293 entries in the report.
That may seem overwhelming to review, but filtering can be used in searching. Filtered searches from the time period of Jan. 1, 2017, through Dec. 31, 2018, contained some interesting revelations.
The Green New Deal proposes a massive network of rail to replace other travel such as planes. When it came to using the existing network of Amtrak, AOC’s campaign filed four charges with the company as “Fare,” one as “RR Fare,” four as “Tickets” or “Amtrack tickets,” and one as “Travel.”
Arguably, that could be 10 trips on Amtrak. The total cost was $2,605.07.
So how did her campaign stack up with the evil air travel? The numbers are not pretty — at least from the “green” point of view.
Here’s the rundown:
Delta airlines had 17 listings under “Tickets,” “Plane tickets,” ‘Travel,” and “Airfare.” The total cost was $7,004.25.
With Allegiant there were four charges for “Airfare,” “Fare,” “Travel,” and “Tickets” totaling $1,161. Spirit Airlines showed up five times with “Fare” and “Travel charges”totaling $465.02.
There were seven “In Flight Service” charges with United Airlines, but only two charges for “Airfare” or a “Ticket.” Those two charges totaled $1,231.13.
Southwest only appeared once, with a $245.96 charge for “Airfare.”
American Airlines, misspelled in the report as “Americcan Airlines,” has 20 listings for “Airfare” and “Travel.” The total for those charges was $9,323.88.
The grand total for all the airfare was a whopping $19,431.24. That’s more than seven times more money spent on air travel than the $2,605.07 for rail travel with Amtrak.
It’s true that airfare can cost more than rail — but Amtrak isn’t cheap by any means. Still, there were 49 ticket charges for air travel and only 10 for rail travel. Significantly more trips were conducted by air than by rail.
(As an aside, the Green New Deal attacks car use, too. Car service charges appeared 534 times in Ocasio-Cotez’s campaign filing with the FEC.)
What that filing shows is that the actions, the choices, of AOC and her campaign arguably do not reflect the Green New Deal. Some would say that is just another example of Democrat hypocrisy.
In a statement sent by email to The Western Journal, the nonprofit group Power the Future, made it clear that Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal is something that goes beyond hypocrisy. If actually implemented, it would spell disaster for America.
According to a Daily Caller report from February 2018, Power the Future was founded ahead of the 2018 midterms to battle liberal environmental groups on energy issues. As the Green New Deal’s unveiling shows, that battle is going to be long and bitter.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes the world is ending in 12 years, and her only solution is a 14-page document without any specifics or numbers,” Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner said in the statement The Western Journal.
“I don’t agree with Michael Bloomberg often, but he is dead-on when he calls the so-called Green New Deal a ‘pie in the sky’ idea.
“When America is finally becoming energy independent, it strikes me as unpatriotically dangerous to propose risking our economic and national security for a politically motivated scheme. Thankfully, this lunacy has zero chance of becoming law, because even if Ocasio-Cortez was able to put a price tag on it, it would bankrupt this nation.”
The proposals in the Green New Deal have been lambasted by many, with various points about impracticality made.
Socialism, impractical proposals, and financially devasting implementation sum up the Green New Deal.
How is that anything remotely helpful to the average American or the poor that the left claims to care about so much?
If liberals are trying to set an example, it’s not a good one.
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