Is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent “wealth tax” racially motivated?
On the morning after the Super Bowl, the New York lawmaker took to Twitter to remind people that under her tax plan, NFL owners “who refuse to hire Kaepernick” would be forced pay that 70 percent rate.
NFL players, she said, would not be subject to her socialist policy.
“The average NFL salary is $2.1 million, so most players would never experience a 70% rate,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
“The owners who refuse to hire Kaepernick would, though,” she added.
The average NFL salary is $2.1 million, so most players would never experience a 70% rate.
The owners who refuse to hire Kaepernick would, though. https://t.co/AnST2lCiU9
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 4, 2019
Her tweet was in response to Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, who mocked that Ocasio-Cortez’s 70 percent tax should be applied to the New England Patriots, who won their sixth Super Bowl on Sunday.
She also referred to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who hasn’t been signed by any of the league’s 32 teams since he spent most of the 2016 season kneeling during the national anthem.
In Aug. 2016 article, Kaepernick was quoted was explaining why he did so.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Kaepernick’s anti-police rhetoric only ramped up over the years since then.
However, Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet raises a serious question: is her 70 percent “wealth tax” racially motivated?
Her tax hike for the wealthy, which is part of her “Green New Deal,” would skyrocket to 70 percent in order to pay for her socialist agenda.
But, more importantly, is she specifically attempting to raise taxes substantially on wealthy people to perhaps help minorities?
Grabien’s Tom Elliot published a piece arguing that Ocasio-Cortez’s radical mandate intends to revamp government in order to funnel more opportunities and resources to minorities.
Ocasio Cortez’s plan imagines creating a national jobs force to help people participate in this “transition.” The Green New Deal, it says, shall “provide all members of our society, across all regions and all communities, the opportunity, training and education to be a full and equal participant in the transition, including through a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one.”
The plan also imagines creating governmental support for “transitioning” minority communities. The deal shall: “ensure a ‘just transition’ for all workers, low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities and the front-line communities most affected by climate change, pollution and other environmental harm including by ensuring that local implementation of the transition is led from the community level.”
More, Ocasio-Cortez sees this plan is being a vehicle through which social equality might finally realized through the use of reparations to right historical injustices. The final Green New Deal will “mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth (including, without limitation, ensuring that federal and other investment will be equitably distributed to historically impoverished, low income, deindustrialized or other marginalized communities in such a way that builds wealth and ownership at the community level).”
To Elliot’s overall argument, Ocasio-Cortez has also been very vocal in her support for reparations for African-Americans.
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