US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez began her term as the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress with a bang this week by proposing to tax the ultra-rich at 60 or 70 percent.
The daughter of hardscrabble working-class parents, the 29-year-old New Yorker was working toward making good on a campaign promise.
“People are going to have to pay their fair share of taxes,” she told CBS television’s 60 Minutes on Sunday.
The proposal is part of an ambitious tax plan dubbed the Green New Deal, which aims to eliminate carbon emissions by 2030.
The self-described Democratic Socialist, nicknamed AOC, suggested taxing the ultra-wealthy up to 70 percent to finance the plan.
“You look at our tax rates back in the 60s, and when you have a progressive tax rate system, your tax rate, let’s say, from zero to US$75,000 may be 10 percent or 15 percent, et cetera, but once you get to, like, the tippy tops, on your 10 millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“That doesn’t mean all US$10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more,” she said.
The top marginal tax rate is now 37 percent, following US President Donald Trump’s fiscal reforms. It was previously 39.6 percent.
Even though it has little chance of success, the proposal backed by the young lawmaker has already garnered significant support.
It landed her on the front page of the New York Daily News, an image of which Ocasio-Cortez was quick to retweet.
A Washington Post analysis found that if the approximately 16,000 Americans who earn more than US$10 million each paid 70 percent income taxes for any revenue above that marker, the federal government would rake in about US$72 billion per year.
However, the sum would likely be much lower, because individuals falling in that bracket would find ways to avoid the heavy tax burden.
In a New York Times op-ed, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman backed Ocasio-Cortez, rejecting “the constant effort to portray her as flaky and ignorant.”
“On the tax issue, she’s just saying what good economists say,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise victory during Democratic primaries in June over Joseph Crowley has made her a key figure of the liberal wing of the party. Crowley had run unopposed for more than a decade and was seen as a contender to become the next speaker of the US House of Representatives.
Ocasio-Cortez rarely attacks US President Donald Trump — but when questioned, she told CBS there was “no question” that he was a racist.
“The president certainly didn’t invent racism, but he’s certainly given a voice to it and expanded it, and created a platform for those things,” she said.
In response, the White House told CBS that Trump has “repeatedly condemned racism and bigotry in all forms,” dismissing Ocasio-Cortez’s “sheer ignorance.”
However, the 29-year-old is no stranger to criticism — and has repeatedly demonstrated that she can respond swiftly to her detractors.
To suggestions that her proposals are unrealistic, she told CBS: “We pay more per capita in healthcare and education for lower outcomes than many other nations, and so for me, what’s unrealistic is what we’re living in right now.”
When Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins called her a “little girl” on a conservative television talk show, Ocasio-Cortez shot back on Twitter: “If anything, this dude is a walking argument to tax misogyny at 100%.”
On Friday last week, a video released online by a detractor showed a young Ocasio-Cortez dancing with fellow Boston University students to the Phoenix song Lisztomania in a remake of a mash-up of scenes from the Brat Pack movies.
However, rather than embarrass Ocasio-Cortez, the release ended up having the opposite of its intended effect.
The representative, who has more than 2 million Twitter followers and 1.5 million on Instagram, responded by posting a new video of her dancing in front of her office on Capitol Hill, writing: “I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous. Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!”
With her past as a New York bartender, Ocasio-Cortez is a figurehead of the new wave of young lawmakers who entered Congress after the midterm elections, bringing fresh perspectives and more diversity to the legislature.
Asked if she considers herself to be a radical, Ocasio-Cortez told CBS: “You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”
“I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she said. “Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security. That is radical.”
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday last week held a debate over the constitutionality of the death penalty. The issue of the retention or abolition of the death penalty often involves the conceptual aspects of social values and even religious philosophies. As it is written in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, the government’s policy is often a choice between the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods, and it is impossible to be perfect. Today’s controversy over the retention or abolition of the death penalty can be viewed in the same way. UNACCEPTABLE Viewing the
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused