Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in an interview Friday that her “radical” environmental plans could be accomplished if tax rates at the “tippy tops” were set at 70 percent.
The “60 Minutes” clip, which aired on CBS Friday morning, shows Cortez being questioned about her “Green New Deal” by Anderson Cooper.
When Cooper got her to admit the goal of zero emissions within 12 years is “ambitious,” he inquired further about the taxation necessary.
“What is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?” Ocasio-Cortez asked. “People are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes.”
Cooper asked for a specific on the tax rate, and Ocasio-Cortez said she was looking to the 1960s for inspiration.
You look at our tax rates back in the ’60’s, and when you have a progressive tax rate system, your tax rate, let’s say from $0-$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. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.
Ocasio-Cortez’s argument is similar to that used by another self-declared socialist in Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who has lauded the high tax rates in the middle of the 20th century when the U.S. economy grew rapidly.
Economists have pointed out, however, that the effective tax rate than was actually closer to present levels, despite being 91 percent on paper.
“The average individual income tax rate in 1960 reached an average rate of 31 percent at the very top, only slightly above the 25 percent average rate at the very top in 2004,” wrote economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez in 2007.
“Within the 1960 version of the individual income tax, lower rates on realized capital gains, as well as deductions for interest payments and charitable contributions, reduced dramatically what otherwise looked like an extremely progressive tax schedule, with a top marginal tax rate on individual income of 91 percent.”
Cooper pushed back on Ocasio-Cortez by noting how radical and seemingly impractical her plan for zero emissions and fossil fuels is.
She embraced the “radical” descriptor and compared herself to wartime presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt
“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.”
“If that’s what radical means, call me a radical,” she concluded.
Read more at Free Beacon
Expect her book in November and a self promotion tour to follow .
Washington is corrupt industry .
If Anderson Cooper has any use for effervescent young females, it’s tv ratings.
It might explain his straight face during the interview.
The personal income tax has not been as high as 70%
since the days of
Lyndon ( FAILURE ) Johnson
Maybe Occupation – Cervix would think about how
any form of taxation slows down an economy and
can even DESTROY it.
I don’t expect O-C to understand
I don’t think she can understand.
I wonder where Occasional-Cortisone will wind up.
The last time arrogant idiocy like this happened was in 1993
When Hill-Ree decided she was going to push the congress around
regarding health care totally ignoring that she was nothing more than
Presidential consort.
O-C is a freshman nothing who intends to push around not only the House
But the Senate and even the President ?
She has a lot to learn and probably never will.
Just as Ocasio-Cortez’s belief that it is possible to reach 100% renewable energy is insane, so is her belief that a tax rate of 70% is also insane.
Just about no one who is middle class or lower could pay their rent or mortgage, and buy food on 30% of their income. What makes her plan even more impossible is the extreme cost of energy that would be the result of her agenda.
I’ll repost what I have said many times. There is no such thing as wind energy. What we have is wind partnered with a fossil fuel plant that is kept idling continuously to cut in when the wind isn’t blowing. The same is true of solar. There is no feasible way to store enough power to support our power grids when renewable energy isn’t available.
A 70% income tax rate would result in more than yellow vests in the United States. There would be an armed rebellion. However, this isn’t going to happen. Many of the Democrats who would have to vote for this tax rate would also join the armed rebellion should this insane plan actually happen.
“… let’s say from $0-$75,000 may be 10 percent or 15 percent, et cetera …”
If a person has $0 income – they pay 10%/15%. Gross income, net income, Social Security, government bonds. She’s young – not a ‘crime’ in and of itself – but she is incredibly ignorant and/or uneducated – and that is a crime. A product of the current ‘education system’ – the real criminals…..
She’s a bigger threat to the Democrats than the USA.
Ocasio-Cortez your typical liberal Tax and Spend liberal Democrat(Democraus Tax & Spendus)taxing us on everything from Big Macs to Firestone Tires to pay for their favorite pet projects. The Democrats need to replace the donkey with a old sow
I won’t call her radical, I will call her amazingly ignorant though, as well as innumerate. I hope her novelty value soon fades and she disappears.