Americans have to look no further than Venezuela to see the harms of socialism, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told conservative activists gathered Thursday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“I think it was a young Bernie Sanders who was talking about it’s good to be in line to wait for food,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said.

In 1985, Sanders, the senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, reportedly said, “It’s good that people are waiting in line for food.”

“I mean, you give me a break,” Meadows said. “In Venezuela, they’re wondering if [they] have enough rabbits to feed their people.”

“We’ve got to get to a point where we celebrate capitalism and understand that in America it doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, that the American dream is available for everybody,” Meadows said. “I’ve lived the American dream and, quite frankly, it is available to each and every person.”

CPAC, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, runs through Saturday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington.

Green New Deal 

The so-called Green New Deal, pushed by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and introduced in the form of a nonbinding resolution Feb. 7, is in the sights of many conservatives here.

Among other things, the Green New Deal would “phase out conventional fuels (that is, oil, natural gas, and coal) by 2030 … , implement a federal jobs guarantee; retrofit all U.S. buildings; overhaul transportation with high-speed rail; and provide universal health care,” Heritage Foundation scholar Lee Edwards wrote in a recent commentary.

It also seeks to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, including “cow farts,” as the original Green New Deal FAQ released by Ocasio-Cortez stated:

We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.

Meadows joked that he saw a silver lining to the goal of abolishing flatulent cows.

“With this Green New Deal, they’re trying to get rid of all the gas,” Meadows said. “But I’ve got good news: Chick-fil-A stock will go way up.”

Trump Keeps His Word

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told the CPAC crowd that politicians and bureaucrats don’t like President Donald Trump because he keeps his word.

“The bottom line is this town doesn’t like the president because this town is not used to  people coming here and doing what they say,” Jordan said. “But the American people, you all appreciate that very fact. It’s something I appreciate …  I [wish] every single American could have time to sit down and talk with the president.”

The Ohio lawmaker said Trump truly cares about American citizens and the future of the country.

“When you’re around the president, …  you can sense the love he has for our troops, for our law enforcement, for the American [people],” Jordan said. “You can just feel it. And that’s what you want in a commander in chief.” 

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