Picking Up The Tab

What to Know: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” would be funded (in part) by a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent, she says.

“Ocasio-Cortez has put forward a ‘Green New Deal’ that includes generating all of the nation’s power from renewable sources, building a national smart grid and entirely eliminating industrial greenhouse gas emissions,” CNBC reports. “A proposal from the democratic socialist lawmaker calls for achieving those goals within 10 years. In the ‘60 Minutes’ interview, Ocasio-Cortez acknowledges that taxes would have to rise to underwrite the necessary investments. Asked for a specific proposal, Ocasio-Cortez suggested the plan might require returning to policies that preceded the overhauls of the 1980s, which significantly reduced the top income tax rate.”

The TPPF Take: Tax cuts, not tax hikes, make people’s lives better.

“Raising taxes is a destructive policy,” says TPPF’s Vance Ginn. “Lower taxes encourage economic growth, which in turn results in more revenues and more economic opportunity. We should instead focus on reducing government spending. Vast new government programs and controls move the United States in the wrong direction.”

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