Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Thursday, September 5, 2019

Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman

Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Max Mittleman
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

S

ince its introduction by 
U.S. Rep. Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., 
earlier this year, the Green 
New Deal — a sweeping 
proposal 
for 
widespread 
climate-centric 
reforms 
— has dominated political 
discussion on climate policy. 
I believe climate change is 
probably the most pressing 
and 
consequential 
issue 
facing the United States. I 
also oppose the Green New 
Deal. 
Perhaps those statements 
seem 
contradictory, 
and 
perhaps “oppose” is a bit 
strong; 
implementing 
the 
GND is far better than doing 
nothing, and several of the 
plan’s components — such 
as modernizing our nation’s 
infrastructure and investing 
in renewable energy — are long 
overdue. I, along with many 
others on the center-left, am 
strongly skeptical that the 
Green New Deal is the right 
path forward. While many left-
wing critics of the GND point 
to its political impracticality, 
the plan’s substance is equally 
concerning.
It’s difficult to estimate 
the 
quantitative 
effect 
the GND would have 
on 
carbon emissions, since the 
resolution 
Ocasio-Cortez 
introduced 
was 
more 
of 
a 
vague 
outline 
than 
a 
detailed piece of legislation. 
What is clear is that the 
GND is a hodge-podge of 
command-and-control 
style 
regulations such as building 
a high-speed rail network to 
“eliminate the need for air 
travel” and “upgrading all 
existing buildings” for energy 
efficiency. These proposals 
are bold ideas, but they will 
inefficiently, 
and 
perhaps 
insufficiently, 
reduce 
our 
carbon emissions. 
The solution is far simpler: 
Carbon 
pricing 
through 
either a carbon tax or a cap-
and-trade system, which are 
the most efficient and cost-
effective 
ways 
to 
reduce 
emissions. Carbon emissions, 
as any economist can tell you, 
are a classic externality. This 
means they have external 
social costs (including, for 
example, 
sea-level 
rise, 
extreme weather, health risks 
and much more) but emitters 
do not pay for — and therefore 
don’t consider — these costs 
when deciding how much to 
emit. This leads to excessive 
emissions 
of 
greenhouse 
gases. 
Taxing carbon emissions 
at the rate of the social cost 
of these emissions will lead 
to a socially optimal amount 
of emissions, which will be 

lower than current amounts. 
A cap-and-trade system works 
similarly, but instead of setting 
the price of carbon emissions 
and letting the market figure 
out the quantity, a cap-and-
trade plan caps the quantity of 
emissions by issuing permits 
to emit and letting the market 
trade permits and decide their 
price. 
Ideally, 
either 
plan 
would be revenue neutral: All 
government revenue from the 
tax or selling permits would 
be rebated to lower-income 
communities to assist with 
potentially high energy costs 
or 
invested 
in 
renewable 
energy technology.

There are still finer details 
to work out under either 
system — calculating the social 
cost of carbon to determine 
the 
ideal 
tax 
amount, 
covering 
other 
greenhouse 
gases like methane, creating 
a border carbon adjustment 
for imported goods, among 
others — but compared to 
other policy priorities like 
reducing poverty or fixing the 
health care system, solving 
climate change is tantalizingly 
achievable. 
Moreover, 
carbon 
pricing 
is 
more 
easily incorporated into an 
international system, which 
is critical since international 
collaboration 
and 
globally 
coordinated 
policies 
are 
essential 
to 
solve 
climate 
change.
For all the Green New 
Deal’s bold ideas, noticeably 
absent is any carbon pricing 
proposal. 
Some 
proponents 
point to a line briefly stating 
the need to “account for the 
true cost of emissions,” as a 
reference to carbon pricing, 
but 
this 
vague 
statement 
hardly 
constitutes 
a 
true 
proposal.
Ocasio-Cortez 
confirmed 
the absence of carbon pricing 
in statements to NPR, in which 
she said that a carbon tax or 
cap-and-trade plan would be 
at most a “tiny part” of the 
GND and be initially “off the 
table.” She continued to say 
that carbon pricing “misses 
the point” and “assumes the 
existing market will solve this 
problem for us.”

This characterization of 
carbon pricing is egregiously 
inaccurate 
and 
borderline 
nonsensical. Carbon pricing 
doesn’t “assume the existing 
market will solve the problem 
for us” — it recognizes the 
failure of the current market 
to address emissions. The 
whole point of carbon pricing 
is to intervene with sensible 
taxes or emission caps to 
allow market forces to reduce 
emissions 
in 
a 
way 
that 
maximizes 
efficiency 
and 
minimizes economic loss. Keep 
in mind that these answers 
were 
prepared, 
written 
statements, not off-the-cuff 
remarks — they represent a 
grave flaw in Ocasio-Cortez’s 
understanding 
of 
climate 
policy, 
not 
an 
innocent 
misstatement. 
It is discouraging to see 
so 
many 
other 
Democrats 
abandon 
market-based 
solutions to climate change. 
Despite the fact that the 
most 
promising 
state-level 
and 
international 
climate 
plans are carbon tax and cap-
and-trade systems, through 
four rounds of Democratic 
debates, 
each 
of 
which 
devoted time to discussing 
climate change, only U.S. Sen. 
Kirsten 
Gillibrand, 
D-N.Y., 
and former U.S. Rep. John 
Delaney, D-Md., brought up 
market-based carbon pricing 
mechanisms. 
Lastly, 
a 
carbon 
tax 
proposal is far more practical 
to pass than the GND. Far-left 
Democrats have grown fond 
of scoffing at the importance 
of practicality, but the hard 
truth is that a climate plan 
is virtually meaningless at 
this stage unless it can be 
enacted. The GND has met 
universal 
opposition 
from 
Republicans and several red-
state Democrats. It is frankly 
unpassable, even if Democrats 
manage to retake the Senate 
and the White House in 2020.
Passing a carbon pricing 
plan will also be difficult 
but far more realistic. The 
late Senator John McCain 
supported 
a 
cap-and-trade 
system 
during 
his 
2008 
presidential campaign, and an 
admittedly imperfect carbon 
tax bill in the House has 
Democratic and Republican 
co-sponsors. While those on 
the far-left jeer at market 
solutions, they’d be wise to 
remember the urgency of 
climate change. We only have 
time for one major push to get 
emissions under control, and 
it’s imperative we get it right. 

NOAH HARRISON | COLUMN

The substantive flaw of the Green New Deal

I

f you have followed the news 
the last couple weeks, you 
have seen loads of articles 
predicting economic Armageddon. 
It is possible the media’s hysteria 
may 
have 
tangible 
negative 
economic 
impacts, 
but 
I 
am 
sufficiently stressed, so I will join 
the chorus. A brief disclaimer: All of 
this terror is preemptive. Economic 
trends can change, and if they do, 
this article and the anxiety that 
bred it would be rendered moot. And 
always remember that economists 
have a less than stellar record when 
it comes to predicting recessions. 
But, for now, the stress is real! 
And if the forecasters are right, 
we — college students — will 
disproportionately feel it. Over the 
last year, pessimism about the U.S. 
economy’s outlook has become 
routine as the stock market has 
fluctuated along with President 
Donald Trump’s tariff whims. But 
this is different. On Aug. 14 the yield 
curve inverted, meaning the interest 
rates on 10-year government bonds 
were lower than those for two-year 
bonds. In other words, the market 
began thinking the U.S. economy’s 
long-term outlook was less risky 
than its short-term. That set off lots 
of alarms. The last six inversions 
of the yield curve each preceded 
a recession. The typical lag time? 
Between one and two years, meaning 
many current college students could 
very likely enter a recessionary 
economy post-graduation. As young 
people entering the labor market, 
a recession would have a serious 
impact on our futures — more than 
any other generation.
Academic 
research 
shows 
that graduates entering the labor 
force during a recession are kind of 
screwed. They are more likely to be 
unemployed, since firms hire less 
during recessions. If someone does 
manage to land their first job, they 
are more likely to be overqualified 
for it because firms become more 
risk averse. And those impacts 
last. Initial overqualification has 
long term consequences since it 
can delay promotion and reduce 
motivation. Recession graduates 
also have lower starting salaries, 
and though the gap is modest, it 
persists for approximately 10 to 15 
years after labor market entry. 
Those 10 to 15 years of 
diminished income matter, and 

research shows they impact the 
rest of recession graduates’ lives. By 
the time the income gap fades, key 
personal financial decisions may 
have been delayed or abandoned. 
For example, recession graduates 
are less likely to be married, have 
children, buy a home or car. They 
also start saving for retirement 
later. 
The impacts are also behavioral. 
Not to get too morbid, but recession 
graduates are more likely to die in 
middle age. It is not clear why. One 
suggestion is financial precarity 
throughout the first 10 to 15 years of 
work leads to less healthy lifestyle 
choices. The other possibility is 
without consistent or challenging 
work, an unstable transition from 
school into the labor market makes 
it more difficult to shed unhealthy 
habits from school, like binge 
drinking or poor sleep habits. No 
matter the cause, it is not a happy 
picture. 

Recessions disproportionately 
impact 
many 
demographic 
groups, not just college graduates. 
According to an ACLU report, 
by 2031, the Great Recession will 
have reduced the wealth in Black 
households by 29 percent more 
than in white ones. Furthermore, 
a 
higher 
proportion 
of 
low-
income households reported they 
were in worse shape after the 
Great Recession than wealthier 
households. And though college 
graduates suffer, recessions are far 
more destructive for high school 
graduates 
entering 
the 
labor 
market. 
The possibility of graduating 
into a recession would be a 
bummer if it was part of the natural 
economic cycle, but it is particularly 
frustrating because this potential 
recession has been expedited. The 
first and most obvious preventable 
cause is President Trump’s trade 

war with China, which has raised 
consumer prices and unsettled 
investors. The second attainable 
way to prevent or delay recessions 
in countries with labor shortages is 
to increase immigration. Much of 
the international economic anxiety 
is over reports of recessions in 
developed economies experiencing 
population loss, like Japan, United 
Kingdom and Germany (also the 
United States). Yet none of them have 
meaningfully increased immigration 
to fill open jobs. Meanwhile, at the 
time of this writing, the Trump 
administration is denying that we 
may be headed towards a recession 
for political purposes and has thus 
ignored any of the preventative steps 
it could take. 
The potential that we may 
be 
recession 
graduates 
thanks 
to our government’s economic 
mismanagement has filled me with 
a lot of frustration for the past couple 
weeks, but in the research, there is a 
silver lining. Recession graduates are 
on average happier than labor market 
entrants into a healthy economy. 
The theory behind the data is 
recession graduates are just grateful 
to be working and spend less time 
thinking about other possible career 
paths. Recession graduates also 
seem to be less narcissistic, perhaps 
because they had to overcome 
more hardship during their initial 
working years. These attitudes can 
have tangible manifestations. CEOs 
who were recession graduates were 
less likely to commit a certain kind 
of business fraud (backdating stock 
options) ubiquitous at the turn of 
the century. 
How the economy fares over 
the next couple years will likely have 
a disproportionately large impact 
on the rest of our lives. If things go 
poorly, our bad graduation timing 
will limit our generation in many 
tangible ways. That is scary, but 
ultimately beyond our direct control. 
What is partly under our control 
is how we approach the work we 
are doing. Instead of letting fear 
and frustration consume us, we 
should focus on channeling the 
philosophy that recession graduates 
hold: An appreciation of the work 
we do, regardless of the economic 
conditions around us.

A

s the 2020 presidential 
election rears its head 
over America, so does the 
bitter tension and frustration that 
arose from the aftermath of the 
2016 election. After 2016’s Election 
Day, 
businessman 
President 
Trump claimed the presidency 
through the Electoral College, but 
former Secretary of State Hillary 
Clinton defeated Trump through 
the popular vote. This situation 
reignited a nationwide debate 
about the efficacy of the Electoral 
College. And that very same debate 
has reappeared as the 2020 election 
begins. 
Mainstream 
Democratic 
candidates vying for the 
presidency — including U.S. Sen. 
Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., U.S. 
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and 
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt. 
— have expressed some desire 
to outright abolish the Electoral 
College. Other Democrats like 
entrepreneur 
Andrew 
Yang 
admit that the Electoral College 
is antiquated to some extent. 
With this growing opinion on the 
Electoral College, it is important 
to recognize not only its origins, 
but also how the Electoral College 
still fulfills its purpose within 
the current American political 
battlefield. 
In 
Doug 
Linder’s 
“The 
Electoral College Debate,” he 
recognizes that the Electoral 
College provides states “a role … 
in the selection of the president, 
(reminding) us of their importance 
in our federal system.” Some 
would argue that the Electoral 
College is counterintuitive to the 
democratic values of the United 
States. Linder cites in the same 
article, a “a vote by a resident of 
Wyoming counts about four times 
more — electorally — than a vote 
by a California resident.” 
Though true in the context 
of the electorate, that does not 
mean that small states like 
Wyoming hold disproportionate 
and absolute federal power over 
larger states like California. The 
entire framework of the U.S. as a 

democratic republic was designed 
to divide power, and the Electoral 
College and the presidency are 
only allocated a slice of that power. 
The electorate champions America 
as a republic, and institutions 
like the House of Representatives 
champion America as a democracy. 
The outright failure to recognize 
or even consider why the Electoral 
College 
distributes 
power 
to 
states in such a way demonstrates 
a 
limited 
understanding 
that 
American politics expands far 
beyond the presidency. 

Look back to the 2016 election. 
In an infographic published by 
The New York Times, it showed 
that Clinton won the popular vote 
by “2.2 million” votes even though 
“her votes were very concentrated 
in only a few states.” She spent 
little time in Michigan, never 
visited Wisconsin, and focused 
on Pennsylvania where she still 
lost. She lost those states by a 
collective total of roughly 73,000 
votes. Imagine if the United States 
operated on a popular system, 
also known as a direct democracy. 
Clinton would have secured the 
presidency by concentrating her 
efforts in the East and West Coasts. 
The idea that a popular system 
would be more fair than the 
Electoral College is absurd. Direct 
democracy as an idea is morally 
antithetical to the values of civil 
rights and equality. The French 
Revolution first decided on their 
system of government to be a direct 

democracy, and look at the results: a 
tyrannical and politically invincible 
majority terrorizing and censoring 
the concerns of the minority. With 
direct democracy, the majority 
would have unmatched power to 
silence the minority, hypothetically 
controlling the presidency and 
at least one house of Congress. 
The Electoral College gives the 
minority and disenfranchised the 
opportunity to control how their 
society around them operates 
without fear of being politically 
sidelined. 
This debate will surely continue 
as “a 2018 report on America’s 
future political demography found 
four realistic scenarios in which 
Democrats win the national popular 
vote but lose the Electoral College 
because of the geography of the 
electorate.” With more Democrats 
than 
Republicans 
preferring 
a popular vote rather than the 
Electoral College, 81 percent and 
51 percent, respectively, it would be 
reasonable to assume that if any of 
these scenarios occur, it could lead 
to more fervent calls to drastically 
alter or even outright abolish the 
Electoral College. 
However, 
these 
knee-jerk 
reactions to default to a supposedly 
more “democratic” popular vote 
lack both political and moral 
foresight, possibly opening the 
door for dangerous factions and 
leaders to seize power in America. 
The Electoral College does not 
hinder the democratic process; 
it emboldens it. It serves as a 
reassurance that the politically 
weak and deprived have the 
opportunity to protect their civil 
rights and community. A shock 
to the system — whether that is 
spontaneous 
transformations 
or immediate abolition — would 
entail an inimical and rapid erosion 
to the founding doctrines of the 
United States, sideline political 
minorities and create a far more 
polarized and divisive political 
landscape in the future.

In defense of the Electoral College

Noah Harrison can be reached at 

noahharr@umich.edu.

SOLOMON MEDINTZ | COLUMN

Solomon Medintz can be reached 

at smedintz@umich.edu.

Oh, to graduate during a recession

Joshua Kim can be reached at 

joshica@umich.edu.

JOSHUA KIM | COLUMN

The Electoral 
College does 
not hinder the 
democratic 
process; it 
emboldens it

A climate plan 
is virtually 
meaningless 
at this stage 
unless it can 
be enacted

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A recession 
would have a 
serious impact 
on our future 

