We have to come up with a suitable nickname for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Don’t you hate having to type names with hyphens? I’m sure we could do something with her initials “OC” — maybe “The Great and Powerful OC” or something.
Whatever you want to call her, she’s an economic ignoramus. Appearing on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah, OC was asked a question that just about any politician worth their salt would hit out of the park: how she plans to pay for all those freebies she wants to offer the voters.
“This is an excellent, excellent question,” she replied. “I sat down with a Nobel Prize economist last week — I can’t believe I can say that, it’s really weird — but one of the things that we saw is, if people pay their fair share, if corporations and the ultra wealthy — for example, as Warren Buffett likes to say, if he pays as much as his secretary paid, 15 percent tax rate, if corporations paid — if we reverse the tax bill, raised our corporate tax rate to 28 percent … if we do those two things and also close some of those loopholes, that’s $2 trillion right there.”
Liberal economist Paul Krugman won a Nobel Prize. That’s all you need to know about the value of that endorsement.
It would certainly be nice to have an extra two trillion a year — or over 10 years, since she fails to mention the time period over which we’d get that windfall. Her only problem is that she’s coming up a little short. That’s because she also wants to “transition” America to a “100 percent renewable economy.” This is in addition to the $1.4 trillion per year she wants to spend on Medicare for all and another $75 billion a year for free college tuition for all.
She also said it would take $3 trillion to $4 trillion and a carbon tax to create a “renewable energy economy” and claimed the Trump tax cut bill prevents the wealthiest Americans from paying “their fair share.”
“One of the wide estimates is that it’s going to take $3 trillion to $4 trillion to transition us to 100 percent renewable economy,” she continued.
Are you keeping track? Two trillion in new revenue but at least $3 trillion for renewable energy and $1.5 trillion in spending on just two of her many gifts to taxpayers.
Well, no one every accused socialist OC of being a whiz at math.
What about that $2 trillion in new revenue? Maybe she should ask France how their “tax the rich” plan worked out?
François Hollande’s unpopular tax changes that imposed a 75% rate on earnings above €1m (£780,000) will quietly disappear into the history books from Thursday.
The French socialist president announced plans for the controversial measure during his 2012 election campaign as a means of forcing the wealthiest to help dig the country out of economic crisis.
Although supported by the left, the reform sparked accusations of an anti-business agenda. After the “supertax” was announced in September 2012 the government was accused of shooting itself in the foot by risking an exodus of high-profile personalities. Business leaders expressed fears that investors would pull out of France.
And that’s exactly what happened. This led to the embarrassing result of a tax plan that was supposed to raise 30 billion euros coming up just a little bit short:
Finance ministry studies showed that despite all the publicity, the sums obtained from the supertax were meagre, standing at €260m in 2013 and €160m in 2014, and affecting 1,000 staff in 470 companies. Over the same period, the budget deficit soared to €84.7bn.
OC has a high schooler’s understanding of economics. But, of course, how to pay for everything she proposes is irrelevant — not when Trump is running a trillion-dollar deficit. The point is, you don’t have to pay for it, just enact it. And while we’re dreaming of living in that socialist paradise OC and others envision, I’m going to go out and buy a 10-year supply of toilet paper. We’re probably going to need it sooner rather than later.
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