AOC / Bowman tax hike on wealthy
Lefty firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her New York congressional sidekick Rep. Jamaal Bowman endorsed a massive $50 billion package of state tax hikes on the wealthy to maintain services during the pandemic-fueled fiscal crisis.
AOC and Bowman, both Democratic Socialists representing Big Apple districts in DC, backed a growing progressive insurgency in the Democratic-run state legislature to pressure Gov. Andrew Cuomo into agreeing to tax hikes.
They pledged their support for “The Invest in Our New York Act” Act at a 4 p.m. press conference Thursday in The Bronx.
Their allies in the New York branch of the Democratic Socialists of America are key partners in the tax the rich campaign.
“It’s not complicated. We have to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Working families are paying their fair share. They’re paying enough.”
She said New Yorkers shouldn’t have to settle for under-funded schools, mass transit and “crumbling infrastructure.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of The Bronx and Queens, said she will continue to press Congress and the White House to provide more New York more federal coronavirus recovery funding, but that doesn’t preclude imposing state higher taxes on the wealthy.
Like Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman, a former Bronx middle school principal, shocked the political world last year by trouncing a long-time Democratic incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel as a lefty insurgent in the 2020 Democratic primary. He has joined “The Squad” of like-minded progressives in the House of Representatives, which includes AOC.