As part of her proposed “Green New Deal,” recently sworn-in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) revealed during a sit-down with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that her ideal tax plan to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade would raise top income tax brackets to as high as 70 percent – nearly double the nation’s current top federal tax rate of 37 percent.
“But once you get to the tippy-tops, on your $10 millionth, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 percent or 70 percent," she told Cooper on 60 Minutes. "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.”
Asked how she'll pay for her "green new deal," Rep. Ocasio-Cortez @AOC floats raising taxes as high as "60 or 70 percent."
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 4, 2019
She then likens her project to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
"If that's what radical means, call me a radical." pic.twitter.com/2zyeI6omwX
Americans for Tax Reform noted that when added to New York State’s top income tax rate of 3.876 percent as well New York City’s top income tax of 8.82 percent, wealthy residents of Ocasio-Cortez’s hometown would end up paying nearly 83 percent of their income in taxes under the new congresswoman’s proposed “deal.”
ATF also notes that Californians “would pay a top rate of 83.3 percent (70 percent plus the California rate of 13.30 percent).”
None of that includes other taxes such as sales tax, personal property taxes, capital gains taxes or the death tax.
In the interview, Ocasio-Cortez claimed these higher taxes would be used, at least in part, to pay for her proposed plan to eliminate all U.S. carbon emissions and fossil fuel use over the next 12 years, a feat that would likely not only bankrupt the nation but would be unfeasible given the country’s energy and transportation demands.
Additionally, the newly-elected congresswoman still hasn’t given a detailed – or anything beyond intentionally vague – plan as to how she plans to fund her other socialist agenda items, such as free college and universal healthcare.