Perspective On the Green New Deal Proposal

I have dinged the “Green New Deal” proposal in earlier posts for estimated costs that suggest the proposal is a unicorn.

For perspective, it’s helpful to have some real costs of other big programs.

In 2012 dollars (using the implicit price deflator) the entire cost of the 14 year Apollo space program was $115 B (that’s my calculation, which is a bit higher than that shown on Wikipedia).

The entire Manhattan Project (to develop the atomic bomb) cost $22 B in 2016 dollars.

The Obama stimulus package of 2009 cost $840 B in 2009.

The entire Roosevelt New Deal is estimated to have cost $653 B. in 2009 dollars.

Program	Real Cost
Apollo	$    115,000,000,000
Manhattan Project	$     22,000,000,000
Roosevelt’s New Deal	$    653,000,000,000
Obama’s Stimulus Package	$    840,000,000,000
Proposed Green New Deal	$ 52,600,000,000,000

In fairness, I should note that at the time of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the economy was much smaller. In relative terms, total New Deal spending over the 8 years of the program amounted to 40% of a single year of GDP. Using the rough figure of $20T/yr for current GDP, this works out to about $8T for the entire New Deal, This is at most 15% of the proposed cost of the Green New Deal.

I’ll reiterate: the Green New Deal is quite a bit more than unrealistic.