Economy

Sarah Sanders to AOC: Unlike Members Of Congress, American Workers Have To Show Up To Get Paid

Published

3 years ago

April 23, 2020

During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Thursday, Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders sounded off on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who suggested that American workers orchestrate a national boycott when the economy reopens after the coronavirus, saying she needs to look back to where she came from and remember that she still gets paid as a member of Congress regardless of whether she’s doing her job.

“This is the same Congresswoman who just last week was celebrating the devastation of the oil and gas industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are tied to that because she hoped it would provide momentum for her Green New Deal.” Sanders said, “This is also a person who may want to go back to her roots and remember that most Americans, unlike those in Congress have to show up in order to get paid and that they don’t have the luxury of not doing their job and still being able to provide for her family like she does as a member of Congress.”

She continued, “There are people that are really hurting. The President is looking for ways to protect, to help them. She might want to join in that effort instead of putting people down who are struggling and trying to figure out how best to help their families and provide that food. She might wanna go back and remember that when she was a bartender and not a member of Congress, she didn’t have that luxury.

.@AOC is calling for a National Work Boycott after Coronavirus is over.

“When we have this discussion about going back or re-opening, I think a lot people should just say ‘no’… we’re not going back to that.”

People WANT to go back to work.

She is so out of touch. pic.twitter.com/QAalkAxzIz

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) April 22, 2020

Ocasio-Cortez made the statement Wednesday during an interview with VICE TV’s political talk show “Seat at the Table with Anand Giridharadas.”

“When we talk about this idea of reopening society, you know only in America does the President, when the President tweets about ‘liberation’ does he mean go back to work.” Ocasio-Cortez said.

She added, “When we have this discussion about going back or reopening, I think a lot of people should just say no, we’re not going back to that, we’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we could put food on the table and not even feel any sort of semblance of security in our lives.”

In the last week, 4.4 million people have applied for unemployment insurance bringing the total coronavirus unemployment claims to more than 26 million.

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Economy

San Francisco gas-furnace ban will gouge residents and strain vulnerable electric grid

Published

2 days ago

March 22, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

Progressive California is digging itself deeper and deeper into a literal energy crisis. Last week, twenty members of the Air Quality Management District “approved the plan to phase out and ban gas-powered systems that emit nitrogen oxide, or NOx, and that contribute to air pollution. Three board members were absent, and one member abstained” writes National Review.

The ban will phase out the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters in Northern California. As a result, it will “be costly for residents, will further burden an already stretched electric grid, and will have minimal environmental impact” energy experts and economists told National Review.

“The move is emblematic of California’s approach to energy, which involves ramping up the demand for electricity while gutting the state’s ability to meet its electricity needs,” they said.

Specifically, it is “a regressive policy that’s going to increase costs in a state that is already unaffordable, it’s going to do minimal in terms of reducing [greenhouse-gas] emissions, and it’s going to stress a problem that we already have no plan of addressing, which is [that] our grid is going to be unable to provide reliable electricity,” said Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow in business and economics at the California-based Pacific Research Institute who is studying the state’s electricity shortfall.

Winegarden said California already has a major housing-affordability problem. “And now we’re going to make it even less affordable,” he said. While there are state and federal incentives and subsidies for people to purchase and install electric heating systems, Winegarden, an economist, called it a “shell game.”

“Subsidies don’t get rid of the costs,” he said. “They just redistribute the costs.”

The board’s vote did not address natural-gas stoves because it doesn’t regulate indoor air pollution, notes National Review. However, earlier this year, the Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering restrictions, and possibly a ban, on natural-gas stoves.