![Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Does 60 Minutes [VIDEO]](https://victorygirlsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/49007495_10156939218426613_3421166653579198464_n.jpg)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been the media’s darling ever since she won her primary (it was a foregone conclusion that she would win the election). After all, how many other freshmen representatives are getting interviews with Anderson Cooper that are airing on 60 Minutes?
Answer: none. “Alex from the Bronx” has gotten more glowing media exposure than even politically correct/intersectional new congresspeople like Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar. Why? Because she’s very photogenic, she’s young, and she appeals to the demographic that the mainstream media are desperately trying to draw back to the TV screen. The full interview and transcript can be found here.
Here are a few important takeaways from the congresswoman’s interview.
This truly is the essence of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even when she gets her facts really mangled, it doesn’t matter, because she’s “morally right.”
“There's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right,” @AOC says in response to criticism that she’s made factual errors. https://t.co/sKf3sHl9F6 pic.twitter.com/xKc2eB7GEk
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 7, 2019
Morals aside, both sides are fond of saying that you “are not entitled to your own facts,” in the late Senator Moynihan’s turn of phrase. Likewise, the congresswoman does not get to brush aside the facts just because she FEELS that she is right. Ocasio-Cortez has been caught saying things before that sound good to the progressive socialist ear and then having zero explanation for what she means. Her “morally right” explanation is meant to cover all of her gaffes henceforth. SHE CARES, SO STOP CRITICIZING HER. Except that facts and numbers DO matter, and she undermines any legitimate argument she might attempt with her “morally right” pose.
The single greatest thing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could do for the Republican party would be to keep pushing that idea that the “tippy-top” of the rich need to pay their fair share with a 70% tax rate on everything earned after $10 million, so she can push her “radical” plan of a “Green New Deal,” getting rid of all fossil fuel usage in 12 years.
Here again, those numbers don’t add up.
Some folks wondered how much money this would raise. My colleague @JStein_WaPo did the math: $720 billion a decade. https://t.co/OcoEuWiAVn
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 5, 2019
In 2016, the latest year for which government data is available, approximately 16,000 Americans earned more than $10 million each. These are not in fact “the 1 percent” many on the left like to talk about — they are a much smaller slice, fewer than 0.05 percent of all U.S. households.
It’s difficult to estimate precisely how much more in taxes the government could wring from this ultra-elite. Collectively, their total taxable income amounted to $405 billion in 2016, and they paid about $121 billion in federal income taxes. They also face state and local taxes, which raise their overall tax burdens.
As she noted to “60 Minutes,” Ocasio-Cortez’s idea for a 70 percent tax rate on those earning more than $10 million would only kick in beyond the first $10 million in income. So, this new tax rate would do nothing to add to the amount of federal revenue on the first $160 billion (16,000 people multiplied by $10 million) in taxes this group paid.
But that leaves about $244 billion in taxable income for those earning more than $10 million a year. If this entire pool was taxed at 70 percent instead of the 39.6 percent they paid in 2016, the federal government would bring in an additional $72 billion annually — or close to $720 billion over 10 years, according to Mazur. The real number is probably smaller than that, because wealthy Americans would probably find ways around paying this much-higher tax.
Does anyone else remember Will Smith’s reaction in 2012 to learning that the French tax rate was 75% in order to pay for all their socialist programs? You want Hollywood elites to move out of the United States? This is a good start.
Also, as some have pointed out, the marginal tax rate was much higher in the mid-20th century than it is now. What happened? Ronald Reagan happened. So, I would really like the congresswoman to keep up this “tax the rich for a Green New Deal” talk. We might just get another Ronald Reagan out of it.
The reason that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got elected and has all this media attention? She sounds like the millennial next door. Or maybe the millennial still living with their parents in the Bronx.
Ocasio-Cortez’s was working as a waitress and bartender when she decided to run for Congress. Like many millennials, she had student loans to pay and no health insurance. “When you can’t have healthcare, that is not dignified,” she says. https://t.co/B9SS8WHcW3 pic.twitter.com/dLUcCHJ4CH
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 7, 2019
Conservatives would do well to heed why this line resonates with the millennial crowd. Student loan debt is a very real problem, and while we need to seriously re-tool the way college is presented as an expectation to future students, it does nothing to help the people who are carrying student loans. As Mike Rowe has eloquently said, “We are lending money we don’t have to kids who can’t pay it back to train them for jobs that no longer exist.” So while these college graduates are employed, it’s nothing like the earning power they were once promised by simply having a 4 year college degree. And as for health care? Congresswoman, your party put us in this hole. Up until recently, people were required to buy health insurance under Obamacare. Are you saying that there are people out there who can’t even afford an Obamacare plan??
While those of us who are old enough to know how economics, health care, and how the world works can shake our heads and sigh at the millennials, we have to remember that the millennials have been sold a bill of goods and their credit is now officially overextended. This age group was promised the moon, and all they are coming away with are cheese and crackers (a little Wallace and Gromit humor, there). While previous generations would have been grateful for the cheese and crackers, the millennials – products of lawnmower parents and sugar daddy government – are still asking for the moon, because it was promised.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is tapping into that millennial frustration with her brand of “democratic socialism.” She’s gonna make Daddy Government pay for everything, because THAT’S FAIR. Conservative leadership needs to seriously consider how to reach out to millennials. We can’t compete with government programs that act like Santa Claus, so we are going to have to reach further back and focus on individual liberty. You know what millennials say? “You can’t tell me what to do!” It’s time to tap into THAT, and remind them of their God-given inalienable right to live their life how they see fit, FREE of government interference.
She might be the media’s creation and a leftist dream, but I get the feeling that, given her deep blue district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to be around for a long, long time. We’ll see how long her pleas of poverty last in the rarefied air of Washington D.C., where Bernie Sanders owns three houses and is hailed as a socialist hero. We would do well to take her seriously, and deconstruct her ideas, not the woman, every time she opens her mouth. It seems we will have no shortage of material.
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So, is any Republican going to take her at face value and recruit her for the “repeal Obamacare” club? Of course not. She wouldn’t join anyway, because now she’s set for life and will only pander to the little people.
Mike Rowe is spot on with his comment. I had lunch with some old friends this week. Their son came along. He works on an oil rig in North Dakota and said that they can’t keep help, despite $25/hr starting pay.
I’m not sure what’s going to pull our nation back from the abyss, but something’s got to give.
GWB says: Because she’s very photogenic
If you can get by dem eyes….
Jeepers creepers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hZySbS2_Dw
AOC should be taken seriously. The “Green New Deal” is similar to what IPCC is proposing in SR15 (and UN SDG). There’s a great push for socialism, and it’s aimed at the U.S.
Federal subsidies for higher Ed should be eliminated, ESPECIALLY in the humanities, but I disagree on the Mike Rowe comment. People taking out student loans aren’t being trained “for jobs that no longer exist.” STEM grads have good employment prospects. Jobs never existed for gender studies and social justice grads… Except in govt bureaus, which is where they’ll end up, ruling the rest of us, if we don’t put a stop to this.
GWB says: because she’s “morally right.”
And that’s the fundamental disconnect between progressives and the rest of us. Their religion (progressivism) has a lot of moral imperatives that conflict with traditional Western Civilization (Judeo-Christian morals).
Except that facts and numbers DO matter
Only in your cishet, white, patriarchal “reality”.
And if you believe that line, I’d invite you onto my roof to demonstrate your defiance of my “reality”.
because wealthy Americans would probably find ways around paying this much-higher tax
And there’s that ugly “reality” thing coming up, again. Because these folks (being rich, and not fettered by budgets like lower income folks) are not chained to their sewing machines, nor even to America. They can afford to pay a lawyer a million dollars to avoid a tax of 1 billion.
When you can’t have healthcare, that is not dignified
First, “health care” is NOT “health insurance”. Second, health care is so expensive because of people like you who insist on meddling in the market, blindly flinging about your “compassion” and ignoring “reality”.*
(* Health care is expensive primarily because of health “insurance”. Health “insurance” is so expensive partly because of attempts to tax every last dime a worker makes, and that his employer pays out – while offering a sop of “but health benefits won’t be taxed”. Taxes have consequences.)
the earning power they were once promised by simply having a 4 year college degree
Which, when combined with “everyone can go to college!” was ALWAYS a lie. (Oh, and gov’t meddling, again, since employers couldn’t use things like skills evaluations to see if the potential hires were competent (because RACISSS!), they turned to a proxy to see if you could work to completion and learn something.)
remind them of their God-given inalienable right to live their life how they see fit, FREE of government interference
No, it’s a step beyond that. You have to get them to understand that someone else providing for them – in any way – means that they are NOT “free”, no matter how much license they are given to practice their vices. And, that license actually binds them just as much as any authoritarian state – because you will be governed, either by yourself, or by others.
Then, maybe, you can actually teach them virtues, and how to govern themselves.
Kathy says: I appreciate the thought out comments almost as much as the article. Thank you all.
Brian says: AOC is not from the Bronx. She grew up in Yorktown Heights in Westchester County, one of the most affluent counties in America.
Kathy Leicester says: Her new “name” is RPOS, because she is, indeed a Racist Piece Of S***. No more cutesy “AOC” for socialist-girl, not after 60 Minutes.
Our neighbors, millenials and otherwise, when asked “Do you think it is appropriate to use the power of the State to force your neighbors to do things you think are proper and important?” will look at you and say “Of course. Force is necessary.”
“Necessary.”
Doe-eyed racist wants you dead, or enslaved.
The way to handle her and her ilk are to fight like we’ve never fought before, for truth, justice, and the American Way. American culture and our constitution will be enough. We can do this, but doe-eye is the face of the enemy.
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