Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has a plan to combat the most dangerous threat our world faces in the coming decades, and she plans to repeal President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy to pay for it.
Warren has been rising in popularity in recent months, presenting herself as a clear progressive alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential race and as a better option than Trump. Her grassroots operation and ability to talk about the issues Americans care about the most with ease has positioned her for success. She even beats Trump by double digits in a recent poll.
And now she is effectively selling her climate change plan and telling Americans how she intends to pay for it.
“The world must limit warming to below 1.5° C to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes, cutting carbon pollution roughly in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050,” she explained in a Medium post on Tuesday. “As the world’s largest historical carbon polluter, the United States has a special responsibility to lead the way. That’s why I’m an original supporter of the Green New Deal, which challenges us to go above and beyond — to launch a ten-year mobilization through 2030 to achieve net-zero domestic greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible.”
In fact, Warren is taking up where Washington Governor Jay Inslee left off when he bowed out of the race last month by adopting his ten-year plan to combat climate change.
One of the most important of these ideas is the urgent need to decarbonize key sectors of our economy. Today, I’m embracing that goal by committing to adopt and build on Governor Inslee’s ten-year action plan to achieve 100% clean energy for America by decarbonizing our electricity, our vehicles, and our buildings. And I’m challenging every other candidate for President to do the same.
In addition to the $2 billion investment she plans to make toward developing clean energy technology and transitioning the country away from fossil fuels, she announced an additional $1 trillion over the next decade, which the wealthy will pay for.
Today, I’m announcing I’ll commit an additional $1 trillion over 10 years — fully paid for by reversing Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and giant corporations — to match Governor Inslee’s commitment, and to subsidize the economic transition to clean and renewable electricity, zero emission vehicles, and green products for commercial and residential buildings. All told, a federal investment of $3 trillion will leverage additional trillions in private investment and create millions of jobs.
It’s a bold plan to combat a growing threat that is already harming the United States and the world, but it also has the added benefit of repealing a tax cut law that never should have been passed in the first place. Trump’s tax cut has cost Americans billions of dollars while handing more money to wealthy individuals and corporations who don’t need it. It’s time to take that money back and do something useful with it. The wealthy, after all, have exploited our planet the most. It’s only fair that they pay to clean up the mess they caused by their greed.
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