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%.
The daughter of workingclass parents, the 29-year-old New Yorker was working towards 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” that aims to eliminate carbon emissions by 2030.
The self-described Democratic Socialist, nicknamed AOC, suggested taxing the ultra-wealthy up to 70% to finance the plan.
“You look at our tax rates back in the ’60s and when you have a progressive tax rate sysOcasio-Cortez tem, your tax rate, let’s say, from zero to 75,000 [dollars] may be 10% or 15%, et cetera,” said. “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%.
“That doesn’t mean all 10million are taxed at an extremely high rate. But it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.”
The top marginal tax rate is now 37%, following President Donald Trump’s fiscal reforms. It was previously at 39.6%.
The proposal backed by the young lawmaker has already garnered significant support.
A Washington Post analysis found that if the approximately 16,000 Americans who earn more than $10m (R138.76m) each paid 70% income taxes for any revenue above that marker, the federal government would rake in around $72bn (R999bn) per year.
But 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.
She rarely attacks President Donald Trump – but when questioned, told CBS there was “no question” 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.
She is no stranger to criticism, and has repeatedly demonstrated she can respond swiftly to her detractors.
To suggestions 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.”
And 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, a video was released online by a detractor, showing a young OcasioCortez dancing with fellow Boston University students.
The congresswoman responded by posting a new video of her dancing in front of her Capitol Hill office, writing: “I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous. Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!”
Ocasio-Cortez has more than two million followers on Twitter and 1.5-million on Instagram.
With her past as a New York bartender, Ocasio-Cortez is a figurehead of the new wave of young lawmakers, bringing fresh perspectives and more diversity to the legislature.