Ocasio Cortez Calls Out Miniority Whip Steve Scalise

 

Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out Miniority Whip Steve Scalise

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has responded to more criticism of her suggested plan to implement a 60 to 70 percent tax on Americans with an income over $10 million a year in order to fund the New Green Deal.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise was on the receiving end of her tweet, after Scalise shared a link from his account on Saturday morning. 

"Republicans: Let Americans keep more of their own hard-earned money Democrats: Take away 70% of your income and give it to leftist fantasy programs," Scalise tweeted, including a link to an article from conservative blog Hot Air.
Ocasio-Cortez's response came 12 hours later, with the congresswoman writing, "You’re the GOP Minority Whip.

How do you not know how marginal tax rates work?" 
"Oh that’s right, almost forgot: GOP works for the corporate CEOs showering themselves in multi-million bonuses; not the actual working people whose wages + healthcare they’re ripping off for profit."


Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also took aim at GOP strategist Ed Rollins earlier on Saturday after Collins referred to her as a "little girl" during an appearance on the Fox Business Network.
"If you’re going to put her out front with her mouth ... the little girl who wants pre-Reagan economics of 70 percent taxes, the Democratic women are basically going to be damaged," Rollins said.
In response, Ocasio-Cortez said, "GOP loves to insult my intelligence, yet offers *this* as their best + most seasoned opposition to my policy proposals. If anything, this dude is a walking argument to tax misogyny at 100% Republicans rob everyone the opportunity of real policy debate by resorting to this."

 While many have balked at the suggestion Ocasio-Cortez made during her interview with 60 Minutes, which is set to air Sunday, a 70 percent tax on wealthy Americans is not unheard of.


New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman outlined the previous policy in an article published Saturday. In the column, Krugman cites a post-World War II policy that taxed wealthy Americans at a rate between 73 and 80 percent.
"The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics and arguably the world’s leading expert on public finance (although Republicans blocked him from an appointment to the Federal Reserve Board with claims that he was unqualified. Really.) And it’s a policy nobody has ever implemented, aside from … the United States, for 35 years after World War II — including the most successful period of economic growth in our history," Krugman wrote.

A similar article, published by Vox, cites a 90 percent rate for top-earners under President Dwight Eisenhower, and a 70 percent tax rate under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

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