The old New Deal – the one that President Roosevelt used to plunge the country into further economic depression in the 1930s – was sold as a fix for the poverty that faced the average person. Its modern manifestation, the Green New Deal, is being sold by its proponents, most notably Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), as a fix for the fact that folks are too wealthy. I do not deny that her proposals would eternally solve income inequality; they would do so by making everyone poorer. Let us have a closer look at the bill and its author.

One of the stated purposes of the Green New Deal is “to promote justice … by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of … frontline and vulnerable communities.” These goals sound on the whole admirable, but they are empty coming from Ocasio-Cortez, who has demonstrated her bountiful tolerance by finding a friend in fellow freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has been accused of anti-Semitism.

The bill itself is no better in substance than its author is in moral consistency. It is a rather poor way of achieving the economic justice that it promises; the increased energy costs that would come as a consequence of the forceful eradication of cheap and reliable energy would especially hurt poor and minority families, who spend proportionally more on energy and housing costs than their wealthier counterparts. All of this would come at a time when, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, minority unemployment rates are approaching record lows.

Further, though the bill rightfully acknowledges the existence of manmade climate change, it does little, if anything, to actually curb it. Even if it were to succeed in reducing our country’s carbon dioxide emissions to zero through such costly means as the reconstruction of every building in America, the global temperature would only decrease by about .14 degrees Celsius by  2100, per the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

It would seem that such a small change is not worth the $50-93 trillion price tag that the American Action Forum has placed on the Green New Deal, but cost doesn’t seem to concern its advocates. They wholeheartedly embrace the maxim of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who told us not to worry about the monetary debt we owe to other nations because, regardless of the price of a particular program, when it comes to the benefit, “we owe it to ourselves.” Ocasio-Cortez and others seem to abide by the fantasy that we owe it to ourselves to enact policies that might cripple the economy and have little to no effect on the climate.

Consider what else we could do with the tens of trillions of dollars that Ocasio-Cortez would have us spend on her pipe dream. Consider also the consequences of giving government greater control over our lives and our wallets in order to cram down an ineffective and morally questionable agenda.