A left-wing group with ties to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pressuring President-elect Joe Biden to use executive orders for liberal policies to revive the economy — including the Green New Deal — when he takes control of the White House in January.
New Consensus sent Biden a seven-page manifesto Wednesday suggesting that he become the Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the 21st Century, mobilizing the massive government machinery at his disposal to fix the nation’s creaky infrastructure and limping manufacturing sectors amid the coronavirus pandemic while creating sustainable jobs of the future.
New Consensus was founded by Saika Chakrabarti, who served as Ocasio-Cortez’s controversial campaign manager for her initial run for office and as her first chief of staff in Congress. The brash-talking former confidante left AOC’s office amid claims he skirted campaign fundraising rules.
The group’s press spokesman, Corbin Trent, was formerly AOC’s communications director for her congressional office and initial campaign.
The group helped the congresswoman craft her proposed Green New Deal aimed at transitioning America from carbon-spewing fossil fuels to a clean energy economy. AOC had input in Biden’s clean energy plan.
The group’s manifesto calls on Biden to tap the Federal Reserve to provide trillions of dollars in low-interest loans directly to businesses and projects. They noted that former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama leaned on the Fed to lend trillions to banks during the 2008 financial recession.
The group said Biden should require the Fed to return to its mission of developing the US economy by empowering regional regional banks to invest in their local economies.
In order to prevent the money from being misused for speculative trading or stock buybacks, the plan recommends the next president create a National Development Council that would be tasked with setting criteria for sound investments and turning Biden’s Build Back Better program into reality.
Biden could use his executive authority to direct funding to build new mask factories to address COVID-19 and steer money into the auto industry to convert to 100 percent electric cars while building the charging stations necessary to make the choice possible, New Consensus said.
A release summarizing the manifesto said of Biden: “He could upgrade millions of homes to be more energy efficient. He could make sure small businesses in every single Congressional district throughout the country get access to the capital they need to thrive.
“He can restore the United States as an advanced manufacturing superpower and he could make sure America is leading the world in the development of the next generation of technology in everything from energy to Artificial Intelligence.
“If President Biden is able to rise to this moment, he can create millions of good, high-wage jobs in every community across the country, bringing this country out of the current economic depression to be better and stronger than ever before — and he doesn’t need the Senate to do it.”
The manifesto calls on Biden to help “scale up” the green industries of today and tomorrow evenly across all regions of the country– including solar panels, wind-turbine generators and 6G networks, life-extension and space exploration, among others.
“This is what we did in the 1930s and 1940s, and is what we must do again,” the manifesto said.
The plan also said the Biden administration must modernize aging transportation and communications and power grid networks.
The focus on cutting-edge industries with great export potential will help restore America’s lost role as a world leader in developing “unrivaled products.”
The New Census memo is yet another example that activists and thinkers on the left intend to hold Biden accountable for his campaign promises. Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives are holding Biden’s feet to the fire on cabinet hires.
Chakrabarti, New Consensus’ president, said the group wants to help Biden act quickly.
“While we hope Biden is able to use every tool at his disposal to lead this country out of crisis, we aim to help the Biden administration get to work on plan B should he have a non-cooperative Senate,” Chakraberti said.
“Biden could directly and swiftly implement much of his plan to ‘Build Back Better’ and renew the American economy without Congress – using only his presidential powers and responsibilities,” he said.