By: Gabriel E. Miller

Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was recently interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, she was asked about the policies she wants to implement.

The statement that had heads spinning when Cortez 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 percent.” This was in reference to her belief in higher income earners paying their “fair share in taxes”. She then added, ”
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.”

This seems to be the rhetoric for many Democratic Socialists, and Liberals throughout the country, the idea of paying the government “your fair share”. For example, Bernie Sanders said during his campaign, “We tell the billionaire class they cannot have it all. For a start, they’re gonna start paying their fair share of taxes.” What those same people don’t seem to understand is, people who are rich in fact do pay for a large amount of tax.

Stephen Moore wrote an article in 2015 for The Heritage Foundation about this false idea. Moore wrote, “Here are the latest statistics from the IRS for 2011. The top one percent earned 19 percent of the total income and paid 35 percent of the federal income tax. So one of 100 shouldered 35 percent of the entire burden.”

Anderson Cooper asked Cortez her thoughts on people’s reactions when they hear the word socialism, and her affiliation with it if she relates with the Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela. Her response was, “Of course not. What we have in mind– and what of my– and my policies most closely re– resemble what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.”

The error with this statement being, that the Nordic Model, Cortez refers to isn’t socialist. Jeffery Dorfman wrote in a 2018 Forbes article, “To the extent that the left wants to point to an example of successful socialism, not just generous welfare states, the Nordic countries are actually a poor case to cite. Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs.”

Anderon Cooper addressed Cortez’s factual mistakes, he cited the Washington Post had awarded her with four “Pinocchios”. Her response was, “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”

What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t recognize is, as a public speaker and representative of the people, she has the responsibility to provide fair and credible information to her audience. Her preception on right and wrong shouldn’t contradict the objective truth.