What a Green New Deal Finance Plan Should Do

Abstract

This chapter lays out systematically what a Green New Deal’s finance plan must accomplish. It does this partly by reference to what any finance plan associated with any ambitious project must do, but more importantly by reference to what a Green New Deal Finance Plan in particular must do. Because the Green New Deal is unique, relative to recent historical precedent, in operating across industries, across public and private sector activities, and across levels of government as it does, its finance plan must be similarly comprehensive if it is to optimize those multiple interactions. In so doing, it must work to optimize capital allocation with a view both to assuring adequate funding across industries, sectors, and levels of government, and to preventing the emergence of inflationary or deflationary pressures. It must also cohere with the Green New Deal’s commitments to productive, distributive, and environmental justice, treating finance as what at bottom it is—a form of material opportunity of which all must partake.